Retirement

Longevity risk is clearly a huge growth market.  One has to wonder, though, where the capacity to address this market opportunity will come from.

The Employee Benefit Research Institute recently published its 2010 Retirement Confidence Survey.

The report concludes that historically low levels of confidence have stabilized but the amounts of retirement savings and overall preparation continue to decline.

A recent survey conducted by Bank of America indicates that the majority of wealthy Americans are concerned about outliving their savings in retirement.

The BofA survey results reveal that 53 percent of respondents are concerned about making their savings last through retirement, and 59 percent cite healthcare costs as a major concern. 

A surprising 67 percent of BofA survey respondents said that they did not work with a financial advisor for retirement planning.

The survey focuses on households with at least $250,000 in investable assets.

BofA Merrill is focused on recruiting more of its existing corporate customers to its retirement planning business.

Reuters reports that the brokerage firm has recently formed three new teams of advisors what will focus on serving the retirement plans of Bank of America's current corporate and investment banking clients.

There is a great piece in the Wall Street Journal--in the form of a quiz--that reveals survey results on a range of questions related to retirement planning.

Many of the questions and answers are eye opening.

All questions are framed in the general context of the financial crisis and are intended to shed light on how pre-retirees' knowledge, views and plans have changed over the past couple of years.

Well worth the read.

Source: Wall Street Journal

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has published a guide titled "Women and Retirement Savings."

The guide discussed retirement planning from the perspective of women and highlights eight fundamental questions that women should ask themselves when preparing for the financial aspects of retirement.

Sources: DOL and Wall Street Journal

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College maintains a national retirement index that measures the percentage of Americans who are at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

The most recent index results, which incorporate the impact of the financial crisis, reveal that 51 percent of Americans are at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

This is a 7 percent increase from the previous index results.

In a recent interview, TIAA-CREF CEO Roger Ferguson discusses post financial crisis retirement planning and CREF's role in the new retirement planning landscape.

Ferguson believes that increasing longevity in the U.S. is a key driver of what will be a very different 21st century retirement system.

Ferguson also suggests that stable sources of lifetime guaranteed income--in other words an annuity--should provide the "backbone" of the future system:

There is an interesting and worthwhile article in Financial Planning that discusses the post-financial crisis retirement landscape.

The author draws a picture of a new set of retirement norms for Baby Boomers and the generation following Boomers.

Issues addressed include:

• Longevity.
• The financial crisis' impact on retirement planning.
• Sequence of returns risk.
• Social Security.
• Use of annuities.
• Employment in retirement.
• Recreation in retirement.

Source: Financial Planning

There is a very good article in Investment News about retirement planning and, more specifically, devising appropriate withdrawal and income strategies in retirement.

The author discusses the nature of various income requirements and makes the entirely appropriate point that all income needs are not created equal.

For example, travel desires obviously differ from essentials such as food and shelter.