annuity

Veritat is a start-up seeking to leverage process and technology innovation to scale a business model that is typically saddled with persistent and burdensome variable costs.  If successful, Veritat will be able to deliver premium services to a mass audience.

It is natural and tempting to assume that the capital market losses that occurred during the recent financial crisis represent a statistical outlier, a perfect storm, a rare, once in a century event—a black swan.

This is not at all the case.

An unsettling and eye-opening table in the current issue of the Financial Analysts Journal is reproduced below.

The consumer price index has fallen for two consecutive months: 0.2 percent in May and 0.1 percent in June.

The unemployment rate in the United States remains at a persistent 9.5 percent, and in July the U.S. shed 131,000 jobs.

Not exactly the type of news that supports a strong recovery or growth story.

The financial system reforms imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act will likely result in a broad range of increases in the cost of financial services products.

Similar to Sarbanes-Oxley, the regulatory costs of the legislation will ultimately be passed along to the buyers of financial services. 

According to a 2009 article in Sports Illustrated, 78 percent of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress within two years of their retirement, and 60 percent of former NBA players are broke within five years of their retirement.

Brandon Colby, MD, is a world leader in the field of predictive medicine, a medical specialty that combines comprehensive genetic testing with personalized prevention based upon your genes.  Dr.

David Stipp has written about science, medicine, the environment and biotech since 1982 for The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Salon, Science and other publications.

In a basic sense, information theory measures the level of surprise in a message.

A highly informative message will come as a complete surprise and tell you something about which you had no previous knowledge.

Sounds pretty good, right—of what use is it to be told what you already know?  Well, there are actually cases where information is not so welcome.

British lawmakers are considering an end to the law that requires many U.K. retirees to purchase an annuity by the time they turn age 75.

As an interim step, the U.K Chancellor modified the current law so that the age for compulsory annuitization is increased to 77 from the current level of 75 years of age.

The Dutch insurance and financial services giant Aegon appears to be rethinking its U.S. based variable annuity business.

It is reported that Aegon is making a move to apply a macro equity hedge to its in-force variable annuity contracts.

The company is also considering the sale of its life reinsurance business, Transamerica Re.