In-depth coverage of variable income annuities With trillions of dollars in retirement savings assets, the tens of millions of Americans on the precipice of retirement need to convert these savings into retirement income. The fact that variable income annuities (VIAs) generate maximum lifetime income with zero probability of outliving it has spurred the need for more information about VIAs. The Handbook of Variable Income Annuities is by far the most comprehensive source of information on this topic. This book thoroughly describes the most important principles of optimal asset liquidation and demystifies VIA mechanics, so readers can gain a high comfort level with this important financial instrument. Interestingly and clearly, The Handbook of Variable Income Annuities explains the mathematical pricing of variable income annuities, expected rates of return, taxation, product distribution, legal aspects, and much more. Jeffrey K. Dellinger (Fort Wayne, IN), a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, has over 25 years experience in the financial services sector. He advises institutions on retirement income optimization, products, and markets.
Annuity investment has become an increasingly popular option for many investors each year with the market topping more than $100 billion in sales in recent years. Due to the dual nature of annuities, they can often be misunderstood and many investors looking for high return rates steer clear of them, hoping for the quick return rates that they often associate with higher risk investments. Though, as this book will show you, annuity investment done properly can be an incredibly powerful tool in helping you reach your full financial potential without taking substantial risks. In this book, you will learn exactly what annuities are and how they work. You will be shown all of the common misconceptions about annuities and how you can get past those and decide if annuity investment is right for you. You will learn the primary purpose of an annuity and how they can help diversify your retirement options. You also will learn which risks are immediately associated with annuities in regards to your retirement, including longevity, investment, and planning risks. The specific elements of an annuity are laid out in striking detail, showing you how it works, what the differences are between each major type, and what you can expect from deferring annuities and immediate annuities. The pros and cons of each type and comparisons to other investment options such as CDs, mutual funds and retirement accounts will help you decide how an annuity fits into your portfolio. Interviews with dozens of financial experts have helped us compile a comprehensive guide on everything you can imagine related to annuities. You will learn how a fixed annuity operates and what you can expect from multi-year agreements as opposed to single-year agreements or market value adjusted annuities. Index, variable, and income annuities are also described in full detail in their own chapters along with when they are the best choice and how they ideally fit into your investment strategies. You will learn how to properly structure an annuity and how to optimize your variable investments. You will be shown how to access, get out of, or convert your annuities when things change in your life and what you can expect to pay in taxes on your annuities. Finally, you will be walked through the annuity sales process, including what you should expect from your salesman and ten essential questions you must ask before you sign any paperwork. If you are considering or preparing to purchase an annuity in anticipation of your retirement, this book is a vital tool that you cannot overlook. Atlantic Publishing is a small, independent publishing company based in Ocala, Florida. Founded over twenty years ago in the company presidentâe(tm)s garage, Atlantic Publishing has grown to become a renowned resource for non-fiction books. Today, over 450 titles are in print covering subjects such as small business, healthy living, management, finance, careers, and real estate. Atlantic Publishing prides itself on producing award winning, high-quality manuals that give readers up-to-date, pertinent information, real-world examples, and case studies with expert advice. Every book has resources, contact information, and web sites of the products or companies discussed.
Why look into annuities? If you’re a Baby Boomer with little or no pension and most of your money in low-interest savings accounts, an annuity may be the key to a secure and comfortable retirement. How can you find out whether an annuity is right for you? Read Annuities For Dummies, 3rd Edition. This completely revised and updated, plain-English guide is packed with the latest information on choosing the best annuity for your retirement needs. You’ll find out exactly what annuities are, whether they’re the right financial vehicle for you, and which of the many annuity options might have your name on it. You’ll learn the ins and outs of using annuities to fund your retirement years, figure out whether to stress investments with insurance or insurance with investments, and find out how the right combination of annuities can help you squeeze more income out of your savings that any other financial tool. Discover how to: Identify the main types of annuities Weigh the pros and cons of annuities for yourself Minimize the complexity and cost of your annuity investment Figure out how much money to commit Avoid common annuity pitfalls Create an income you can’t outlive The time to start securing your financial future is now. Annuities For Dummies, 3rd Edition, gives you knowledge, insider tips, and expert advice you need to make your money do its best for you.
This practical guide provides a comprehensive overview of professionally managed assets, or investments in which all portfolio decisions and rebalancing are delegated to a fund manager or third-party advice service. Savvy investors looking to achieve a better understanding of the nuances, benefits, and drawbacks of using these products will find the answers they are looking for in The Handbook of Professionally Managed Assets, no matter whether they would like to learn more about mutual funds or hedge funds. There is a considerable lack of knowledge among the investing public about how to properly construct a well-diversified portfolio of investments that includes a selection of professionally managed assets. As a long-standing financial planner, attorney, and educator, Keith Fevurly remedies this issue in The Handbook of Professionally Managed Assets by clearly presenting the major categories of professionally managed assets and revealing the best tactics for investing in these vehicles. Along the way, he reveals each asset's risks and rewards, and he also provides the in-depth knowledge and information investors need to confidently select the right assets for their portfolios. Filled with valuable insights for everyone from financial professionals to individual investors, The Handbook of Professionally Managed Assets stands alone in its ability to shed light on the many investment vehicles that fall under the larger umbrella of professionally managed assets. With topics as wide-ranging as mutual funds, closed-end funds, unit investment trusts, exchange traded funds, hedge funds, managed futures, and more, this invaluable resource will give you the information you need to build a prosperous financial future for yourself and your clients.
Clients nearing retirement have some significant challenges to face. And so do their advisers. They can expect to live far longer after they retire. And the problems they expect their advisers to solve are far more complex. The traditional sources of retirement income may be shriveling, but boomers don't intend to downsize their plans. Instead, they're redefining what it means to be retired—as well as what they require of financial advisers. Planners who aren't prepared will be left behind. Those who are will step up to some lucrative and challenging work. To help get the work done, Harold Evensky and Deena Katz—both veteran problem solvers—have tapped the talents of a range of experts whose breakthrough thinking offers solutions to even the thorniest issues in retirement-income planning: Sustainable withdrawals Longevity risk Eliminating luck as a factor in planning Immediate annuities, reverse mortgages, and viatical and life settlements Strategies for increasing retirement cash flow In Retirement Income Redesigned, the most-respected names in the industry discuss these issues and a range of others.
The quantitative modeling of complex systems of interacting risks is a fairly recent development in the financial and insurance industries. Over the past decades, there has been tremendous innovation and development in the actuarial field. In addition to undertaking mortality and longevity risks in traditional life and annuity products, insurers face unprecedented financial risks since the introduction of equity-linking insurance in 1960s. As the industry moves into the new territory of managing many intertwined financial and insurance risks, non-traditional problems and challenges arise, presenting great opportunities for technology development. Today's computational power and technology make it possible for the life insurance industry to develop highly sophisticated models, which were impossible just a decade ago. Nonetheless, as more industrial practices and regulations move towards dependence on stochastic models, the demand for computational power continues to grow. While the industry continues to rely heavily on hardware innovations, trying to make brute force methods faster and more palatable, we are approaching a crossroads about how to proceed. An Introduction to Computational Risk Management of Equity-Linked Insurance provides a resource for students and entry-level professionals to understand the fundamentals of industrial modeling practice, but also to give a glimpse of software methodologies for modeling and computational efficiency. Features Provides a comprehensive and self-contained introduction to quantitative risk management of equity-linked insurance with exercises and programming samples Includes a collection of mathematical formulations of risk management problems presenting opportunities and challenges to applied mathematicians Summarizes state-of-arts computational techniques for risk management professionals Bridges the gap between the latest developments in finance and actuarial literature and the practice of risk management for investment-combined life insurance Gives a comprehensive review of both Monte Carlo simulation methods and non-simulation numerical methods Runhuan Feng is an Associate Professor of Mathematics and the Director of Actuarial Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst. He is a Helen Corley Petit Professorial Scholar and the State Farm Companies Foundation Scholar in Actuarial Science. Runhuan received a Ph.D. degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Waterloo, Canada. Prior to joining Illinois, he held a tenure-track position at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was named a Research Fellow. Runhuan received numerous grants and research contracts from the Actuarial Foundation and the Society of Actuaries in the past. He has published a series of papers on top-tier actuarial and applied probability journals on stochastic analytic approaches in risk theory and quantitative risk management of equity-linked insurance. Over the recent years, he has dedicated his efforts to developing computational methods for managing market innovations in areas of investment combined insurance and retirement planning.
This 2006 book introduces and develops the basic actuarial models and underlying pricing of life-contingent pension annuities and life insurance from a unique financial perspective. The ideas and techniques are then applied to the real-world problem of generating sustainable retirement income towards the end of the human life-cycle. The role of lifetime income, longevity insurance, and systematic withdrawal plans are investigated in a parsimonious framework. The underlying technology and terminology of the book are based on continuous-time financial economics by merging analytic laws of mortality with the dynamics of equity markets and interest rates. Nonetheless, the book requires a minimal background in mathematics and emphasizes applications and examples more than proofs and theorems. It can serve as an ideal textbook for an applied course on wealth management and retirement planning in addition to being a reference for quantitatively-inclined financial planners.
Sustainable Life Insurance: Managing Risk Appetite for Insurance Savings and Retirement Products gives an overview of all relevant aspects of traditional and non-traditional savings and retirement products from both insurers’ and policyholders’ respective risk appetites. Examples of such products include general accounts, whole life, annuities (variable, fixed and fixed indexed, structured), index-linked products, CPPI-based products, etc. The book contains technical details associated with both practice and theory, specifically related to modelling, product design, investments and risk management challenges and solutions, tailored to both insurers’ and policyholders’ perspectives. Features The book offers not only theoretical background but also concrete, cutting-edge "quick wins" across strategic and operational business axes. It will be an asset for professionals in the insurance industry, and a great teaching/learning resource for courses in risk management, insurance modelling, and more. The book highlights the operational challenges encountered across modelling, product designs and hedging.
Volume I: Financial Markets and Instruments skillfully covers the general characteristics of different asset classes, derivative instruments, the markets in which financial instruments trade, and the players in those markets. It also addresses the role of financial markets in an economy, the structure and organization of financial markets, the efficiency of markets, and the determinants of asset pricing and interest rates. Incorporating timely research and in-depth analysis, the Handbook of Finance is a comprehensive 3-Volume Set that covers both established and cutting-edge theories and developments in finance and investing. Other volumes in the set: Handbook of Finance Volume II: Investment Management and Financial Management and Handbook of Finance Volume III: Valuation, Financial Modeling, and Quantitative Tools.
