Description: The 2021 Society of Actuaries Generations Survey offers results by race and ethnicity. This article is an interview with Alan Newsome and shares the results of the survey as well as broader issues to understand the differences in retirement security by race and ethnicity. It documents that there are major differences, and that the COVID-19 pandemic affected different groups very differently. It also raises issues related to societal conditions.

Description: This article provides a perspective on the SOA’s Aging and Retirement research reports, and on the types of research that are included. The SOA does a lot of research on different retirement topics, and many people are not aware of the scope of this work. This article offers an overview of the big picture as we think about the future. The article describes longer-term challenges to the US retirement system and recent developments that have affected the system and created uncertainty. It provides an overview of what individuals have said about retirement and their view of post-retirement risks and planning in a variety of consumer research studies. It then reviews some of the research and provides information on summary reports which provide insight on the findings from multiple related research reports. It also provides information about consumer education and what is currently available and in process. It then focuses on how the SOA is helping retirement professionals understand current and expected change and discusses areas of uncertainty as we help those we serve deal with change.

Description: Provides perspective on how risk has been shared in a variety of retirement and insurance arrangements, and suggestions some ideas for innovations and different risk sharing in the future. Traditional retirement program are defined benefit and defined contribution, which have very different methods of risk sharing. The new ideas share risk differently. Offers some history of retirement and risk sharing. Goal is to improve retirement security.

Description: This fifth call for essays aimed to gather perspectives, opinions and data on how to advance the state of effective retirement planning tools, products, and strategies to assist individuals, financial advisors, employers and other stakeholders. The goal was to meet two objectives: (1) identify retirement risks, and (2) how to better plan for and maintain a secure retirement.

Description: This article is the second in a series that offers a concise summary of an extensive body of SOA Research Institute work focused on improving retirement planning and management. The article summarizes findings from consumer research and other reports at different life stages to help the reader understand what households actually do with regard to retirement planning. It points out the challenges of groups such as the financially fragile and those who do not have employer sponsored retirement plans. A repeated finding from this work is that individual actions fit patterns that are different from what the planning methodologies and professional advisors believe they are or should be, creating gaps and significant opportunities to help improve retirement planning and management, particularly since individuals have so much responsibility for their own financial security.

Description: This article focuses on retirement planning and knowledge and how the SOA Research Institute has added to our understanding of what consumers know and how they plan. It is the first of a series that offer insight into where consumers are today, identifies gaps in understanding, planning and managing retirement issues, helps us understand how consumers act at various life stages, highlights consumer information collected by the SOA Research Institute and provides some recommendations for working with different stakeholders to improve retirement planning. This article identifies the components of the research and how they fit together and provides a summary of major findings with regard to gaps in knowledge and planning. The research includes focus groups and in-depth interview, consumer surveys, a conjoint study, a study of future issues by Futurists, and more.

Description: Many retirement actuaries have experience developing, implementing, and monitoring Liability Driven Investing (LDI) strategies for plan sponsors. These strategies typically involve modifying a plan’s investment strategy to remove a significant portion of the investment and interest rate risk now or at some point in the future when specific triggers are met. The tactics often involve the use of fixed income assets to cash flow and/or duration match the liabilities. In the spirit of helping actuaries expand their roles in an evolving defined contribution world, this article explores the application of LDI and derisking strategies within defined contribution and individual retirement accounts. The economic theory behind this approach is called the lifecycle hypothesis, or lifecycle finance. The benefits of the lifecycle finance method are that it provides a safe approach to save for retirement and a secure source of floor income during retirement. Similar to pension plans, each individual has his or her own idiosyncratic needs, wants, and risks that should be considered. Actuaries are uniquely situated to help defined contribution plan sponsors, individuals, and even themselves implement the lifecycle finance approach by developing and distributing tools and methods that focus on income (rather than wealth), LDI strategies, and personalization.

Description: The 2020 ERISA Advisory Council of the Department of Labor had a project on Considerations for Recognizing and Addressing Participants with Diminished Capacity. I delivered testimony to the ERSIA Advisory Council on this topic in September 2020. This article summarizes some key points from the testimony and also offers ideas for how employers can help employees and retirees deal with these issues. There are two different audiences that employers deal with as a result of diminished capacity – the individuals whose capacity is diminished, and those who help them.