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RISE Gets Ready to Shine

What are Rick Carey, Jeffrey Dellinger, and Garth Bernard up to, exactly? Quietly, they've been preparing the formal introduction of a consulting firm called Retirement Income Solutions Enterprise, Inc., or RISE. It's a virtual company, with partners in Georgia (Carey), Massachusetts (Bernard), Indiana (Dellinger), and even, they say, the United Kingdom.

No Guarantees For Guaranteed Income

BOSTON-Retirement income planners, along with mutual and insurance fund executives, are wracking their brains to come up with new products that are low cost, easy to use and easy to sell. So far, that is the $70 trillion-dollar question for which no one looking at the rollover potential of the Baby Boomer market has been able to come up with the answer.

Hybrid Income Products Breed Concern Among State Regulators

Applications for a flurry of new investment products, in which guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefits (GLWBs) are attached to managed accounts, lie pending before the Securities and Exchange Commission. But state insurance and securities regulators in some states, including New York, Florida and Alabama, have concerns about the products, which straddle the line between investments and insurance.

Structured Products' Blend Safety with Upside Potential

These principal-guaranteed investments often combine a fixed income investment with equity or commodity futures. Popular among retail investors in Europe and Asia, they haven't caught on so far with U.S. advisers. But that's expected to change.

Annuities Remain Best Bet For Retirees

Outside of a defined benefit plan, traditional life annuities issued by insurance companies are the best ways to reduce longevity risk for women. Yet few retirees purchase them, according to a recent report entitled, 'Evaluation of Approaches To Reducing Women's Longevity Risk.' The report, by Beverly Orth of Mercer Human Resource Consulting, confirms the conventional wisdom that variable annuities, though popular as tax-deferral vehicles, are almost never annuitized. She attributes that to a lack of education about annuities and the media's negative portrayal of them.

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