Longevity risk affecting older adults can be transferred to the insurance market by purchasing a lifetime annuity. Special-rate life annuities, which are priced, among other factors, on the basis of health and lifestyle factors, go beyond traditional considerations of age and sex by using...

Hospitals were among the wealthiest organizations in medieval cities. Their directors managed portfolios consisting of real estate and financial instruments; as a result, they also handled large quantities of money. It has been suggested that they used these to provide a variety of financial...

This paper investigates retirees' optimal purchases of fixed and variable longevity income annuities using their defined contribution (DC) plan assets and given their expected Social Security benefits. As an alternative, we also evaluate using plan assets to boost Social Security benefits...

We re-examine insurance purchases when life insurance and life annuities carry loads. The life cycle literature says that it is optimal to participate in these insurance markets throughout life, even under loads. A life annuity phase backs directly onto a life insurance phase. However, the...

This paper investigates retirees’ optimal purchases of fixed and variable longevity income annuities using their defined contribution (DC) plan assets and given their expected Social Security benefits. As an alternative, we also evaluate using plan assets to boost Social Security benefits...

This paper examines how two instruments—annuities with lifelong benefits purchased using defined contribution (DC) plan assets, and social security annuities—should be considered jointly to optimize household lifetime wellbeing. Understanding how these interact is of key importance in order...

This paper analyzes how individuals value the two main payout options of retirement wealth accrued in a pension plan: a lifelong income stream offered via an annuity or as a lumpsum. A better knowledge of the drivers behind the financial valuation of pension options contributes to the...

In the decumulation phase of a pension plan, consumption depends on the level of annuitization. We measure the welfare loss of an individual with a demand for annuitization if he has no access to annuitization or, equivalently, does not use such access. We find for realistic parameters and a...

Special-rate life annuities are life annuity products whose single premium is based on a mortality assumption driven (at least to some extent) by the health status of the applicant. The health status is ascertained via an appropriate underwriting step (which explains the alternative expression...

Standard life annuities are attractive mainly for healthy people. Premium rates are consequently kept high. Hence, a large portion of potential annuitants are out of reach of insurers. In order to expand their business, some insurers have started offering better annuity rates to people whose...

Due to the increasing interest in several markets in life annuity products with a guaranteed periodic benefit, the back-side effects of some features that may prove to be critical either for the provider or the customer should be better understood. In this research, we focus on the time frames...

This paper frames the decision to purchase a fixed immediate annuity as a wager that can be won or lost. The alternative bet is to hold a portfolio of long government bonds, drawing income and liquidating principal as necessary. There is some probability of ruin in either case: the bond...

Annuities could benefit retirees, but these products can also be costly. Yet, despite significant changes in factors that can affect annuity pricing and value, the money’s worth of individual annuities in the United States has not been addressed in the research literature in 25 years. This...

We propose and estimate a model of demand and supply of annuities. To this end, we use rich data from Chile, where annuities are bought and sold in a private market via a two-stage process: first-price auctions followed by bargaining. We model firms with private information about costs and...

We propose and estimate a model of demand and supply of annuities. To this end, we use rich data from Chile, where annuities are bought and sold in a private market via a two-stage process: first-price auctions followed by bargaining. We model firms with private information about costs and...

The paper presents a model that demonstrates the advantages of partial annuitization in the most straightforward manner. The paper also briefly discusses “the annuity puzzle”, a decades old problem

Substantial research attention has been devoted to the pension accumulation process, whereby employees and those advising them work to accumulate funds for retirement. Until recently, less analysis has been devoted to the pension decumulation process -- the process by which retirees finance...

This paper examines the distributional implications of mandatory longevity insurance when there is mortality heterogeneity in the population. Previous research has demonstrated the significant financial redistribution that occurs under alternative annuity programs in the presence of differential...

We consider annuity designs in which the benefit amount is allowed to fluctuate (up or down), based on a given mortality/longevity experience. This way, guarantees are relaxed in respect of traditional annuity arrangements. On the other hand, while the annuitant is exposed to the risk of a...

We build a political economy model where individuals differ in the extent of the behavioral bias they exhibit when voting first over social long-term care (LTC) insurance and then choosing the amount of LTC annuities. LTC annuities provide a larger return if dependent than if healthy. We study...

Annuity contracts typically deliver a stream of income at a predetermined level in order to insure against the risk of longevity. This paper explores whether flexible annuities, which give subscribers the possibility to choose between different levels for their annuities, may be welfare...

Section 1035 of the current US tax code allows policyholders to exchange their variableannuity policy for a similar product while maintaining tax-deferred status. When the variableannuity contains a long-term guarantee, this “lapse-and-reentry” strategy allows the policyholderto potentially...

This paper evaluates a new variant of the popular target date funds used in employer-based retirement savings plans. We call this new variant a "target retirement plan." Instead of increasing the allocation to bond funds as retirement approaches, a target retirement fund gradually purchases...

This paper investigates retirees' optimal purchases of fixed and variable longevity income annuities using their defined contribution (DC) plan assets and given their expected Social Security benefits. As an alternative, we also evaluate using plan assets to boost Social Security benefits...

This paper captures and measures the longevity risk generated by an annuity product. The longevity risk is materialized by the uncertain level of the future liability compared to the initially foretasted or expected value. Herein we compute the solvency capital (SC) of an insurer selling such a...

This paper assesses the hedge effectiveness of an index-based longevity swap and a longevity cap for a life annuity portfolio. Although longevity swaps are a natural instrument for hedging longevity risk, derivatives with non-linear pay-offs, such as longevity caps, provide more effective...