Investment News columnist Darla Mercado wrote an interesting piece of the difficulty of making meaningful comparisons among annuities and related retirement income products.

Mercado focuses on the challenges created by the lack of benchmarks in the retirement income industry.

Unlike the investment industry where benchmarking and transparency of product features are standard, lifetime income products are opaque and complex.

Those interested in understanding the differences between Registered Investment Advisors ("RIA") and traditional stockbrokers should read this Bloomberg article--this is one of the clearest and best articles that I have seen on the topic.

There is a strong case to be made for health care as the linchpin of retirement planning.  Virtually every major aspect of the retirement planning process is somehow correlated to or contingent on health status.  For example, health status has an impact on each of the following retirement planning components:

Jack Marrion heads a research consultancy focused on the annuity industry and John Olsen is a practicing financial advisor.

Both Jack and John have previously published books that are widely recognized as authoritative resources for the industry.

I had an opportunity to speak to them about their most recent book titled Index Annuities: A Suitable Approach (click here to visit the website for the book).

Meir Statman is the Glenn Klimek Professor of Finance at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, and Visiting Professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

His research on behavioral finance has been supported by the National Science Foundation, CFA Institute, and Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA) and has been published in the Journal of Finance, Financial Analysts Journal, Journal of Portfolio Management, and many other publications.

Jody Strakosch is the National Director for MetLife’s Retirement Products Group.  In this role, Jody has a broad perspective on developments in the institutional space.  In other words, Jody is intimately familiar with how in-plan accumulation and point of retirement annuities are evolving in the defined contribution arena. 

A survey conducted this past August confirms that consumers are confused by the different standards that apply to various types of financial advisors.

76 percent of the 1,319 survey respondents mistakenly believe that brokers are required to act as fiduciaries and serve the best interests of their clients. 

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.

As a registered investment advisor (RIA) that adheres to the fiduciary standard, Veritat provides comprehensive financial planning services through financial advisors who are employed by the company and share a common sense of mission.

The recent hearings on Capitol Hill involving Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions seems to have breathed life into the broad incorporation of fiduciary status within the investment industry.

A pair of senators recently proposed to restore fiduciary language into the Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act of 2010.

Vanguard Founder John Bogle continues to write about the need to restore the notion of fiduciary duty in American business.

Writing in the Journal of Portfolio Management, Bogle attributes the financial crisis to the declining standards in fiduciary duty and overall business ethics.