ARA Executive Interview

One of the key challenges plan fiduciaries may encounter is terminating a retirement plan because of a merger or acquisition. What happens in this situation, why is it such a common issue, and how can advisors help?

Pete Welsh, Managing Director of Retirement and Wealth at Inspira Financial, joins American Retirement Association Chief Content Officer John Sullivan to answer these questions and more.

Sponsored by Inspira Financial

Matt Stubblefield from Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America and Tina Wilson from Empower joins John Sullivan for this episode of the Executive Interview.

Matt shares Allianz's latest research insights into participant attitudes and preferences surrounding this vital aspect of retirement planning. Tina provides firsthand experiences from implementing guaranteed lifetime income offerings on the Empower platform.

Together, they discuss the future adoption and evolution of guaranteed lifetime income within retirement plans.

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The Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement produces insights and research as part of Allianz Life Insurance...

Why is portability so important for retirement plan participants? And how does it apply to in-plan guaranteed lifetime income solutions like annuities?

We speak with Gordy Stead, Director of Institutional Sales at Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America. He joins us to discuss the importance of portability in retirement savings as we explore the unique challenges and considerations when it comes to in-plan guaranteed lifetime income solutions.

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Disclosure

Research cited in this podcast: 

John Hancock Retirement is out with its highly anticipated Financial Resilience and Longevity Report, now in its 10th year. It contains good news for most retirement savers, but some generations lag.

We’re excited to speak with CEO Wayne Park, whose team fielded the study, about what they found as well as trends they’re seeing when looking back at previous years.

We also asked him the all-important question--is there a retirement crisis in this country? Here’s what he had to say.

Sponsored By: John Hancock Retirement

Sponsored by: Inspira Financial Trust, LLC

Financial wellness, automatic rollovers, and plan terminations are currently a trifecta of important topics to which advisors can add real value. In an increasingly commoditized retirement plan space, it’s a way for them to truly stand out in the services they provide to help their plan sponsor and participant clients.

It’s an area of hyper-focus for Inspira Financial, the result of Millennium Trust Company and PayFlex joining forces recently to become a “devoted partner for health, wealth, retirement, and benefits.”

Pete W...

To tackle current workforce and organizational issues, it's essential to move beyond conventional approaches. Many employers are turning to Pooled Employer Plans (PEP) to solve the challenges of the traditional 401(k) structure.

In fact, By 2030, over half of employer plan sponsors are expected to switch to a PEP. Aon’s Rick Jones joins us to discuss how we’ll get there.

PEPs allow employers to combine assets for cost efficiency while shifting fiduciary and operational duties to the PEP provider. They can also improve retirement outcomes for participants—making PEPs a win-win for organizations and their...

The role of personalization in retirement plans is an increasing industry focus as a way to potentially ensure successful outcomes. So, what is Morningstar Retirement’s view on the importance of personalization in the industry?

We asked Morningstar’s Chris Weirath, Head of Business Development and Client Success, that very question, as well as how managed accounts fit in. It’s a fascinating discussion that also touched on the convergence of wealth management and retirement planning.

We began by asking Chris a bit about herself, something not found in her LinkedIn profile.

©2024 Morningstar Investm...

The 2Q 2024 Quarterly Market Perceptions Study from Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz) was recently published. The study provides valuable insights into participant demand for in-plan guaranteed lifetime income solutions, such as annuities, highlighting key differences among generations and demographic groups. Ben Thomason, Head of Defined Contribution Distribution at Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, is here to discuss these insights.

He explains the various participant tools to help address their retirement concerns, awareness of those tools, and more.

A lot is happening with Collective Investment Trusts (CIT). Morningstar recently reported that they’ve finally overtaken mutual funds as the most popular target-date vehicle, and bills are now in the House and Senate to allow them in 403(b)s.

This means that firms like Great Gray Trust Company are well-positioned to take advantage of what’s ahead. The company has been around for quite some time but recently rebranded to better position itself in the CIT space. President and CEO Rob Barnett recently joined us to discuss the company’s past and future, as well as CIT in...

The landscape of retirement planning is undergoing a significant transformation. New challenges have emerged, demanding a more extensive approach than traditional models focused solely on wealth accumulation.

To tackle these issues, a closer examination of the risk landscape is necessary. This will pave the way for more holistic approaches to retirement income planning that prioritize risk management and securing sustainable income, rather than simply accumulating assets.

Recently, Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America released a whitepaper discussing this, and today I talk with the whitepaper’s authors, Matt Gray, Mark Paulson, and Meghan Farrell.

What common services or actions make managing a retirement plan challenging for plan advisors and their clients? What are the main points plan advisors and plan sponsors should know about plan termination? How does auto portability benefit plan advisors, plan sponsors, and plan participants?

Pete Welsh, Managing Director of Retirement and Wealth at Inspira Financial, joins the American Retirement Association's John Sullivan to answer these questions and more.

*Inspira Financial Trust, LLC and its affiliates perform the duties of a directed custodian and/or an administrator of consumer-directed benefits and, as such, do not provide...

What are the biggest challenges facing TPAs, RIAs and recordkeepers? And what will be most impactful from all that we’re seeing on the legislative and regulatory front? We turned to PenChecks’ President and CEO, Spiro Preovolos and Scott Okrasinski, the firm’s National Sales Director, to answer these important questions and more.

They joined us to discuss PenChecks' transformation into a true fintech solutions partner, its exponential growth and cultural transformation, and what it means for better retirement outcomes.

We also asked whether they’re optimistic or pessimistic about the prospects for meaningful retirement saving i...

Follow along with the Learning from the Success of Pension Risk Transfer .pdf. Click here to download.

What did the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act’s passage in 2019 do for lifetime income in retirement plans, and what lessons can be learned from the success of pension risk transfer?

We turned to Securian Financial to help answer these increasingly important questions. Kent Peterson, Vice President of Institutional Retirement Solutions, and Nick Volkmann, Actuarial Director and CFO, join us with a lot to say on the topics.

They also emphasize that in...

The momentum around retirement income products has gained steam as participants are increasingly interested in adding a strategy for guaranteed lifetime income. With a wide range of features, fee structures, and implementation options, it can be difficult to know where to get started.

Thankfully, we have Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America’s Michael De Feo to help explain. In this podcast episode, we’ll walk through different product types and provide guidance on how to evaluate and determine the most suitable option, or options, available for a plan.

Sponsored By: Allianz

M&A expert Peter Campagna, Managing Partner at Wise Rhino Group, has a list of common emotions that advisors face when they decide to sell their business.

“Fully 80% of M&A is managing emotions,” Campagna says. “The financial stuff is somewhat easy, but they’re selling their life’s work. They’re serial entrepreneurs who are going to become W-2 employees, and it’s a big mental shift.”

He joins us to run through the 13 emotions that happen in four phases during the process: 

As always, it's a fun and int...

Interest in guaranteed lifetime income is growing, but plan participants want more than just a reliable monthly income stream. Flexibility, accessibility, and other personalized features are paramount to helping participants achieve outcomes aligned with their unique priorities.

We sit down with Michael De Feo, Head of Defined Contribution Distribution at Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz), to discuss how guaranteed lifetime income solutions, such as in-plan annuities, can help increase the likelihood of positive participant outcomes.

Fee compression and commoditization have hit every area of financial services--retirement advisors are no exception and it’s only slated to get worse. Why, and how is it addressed?

Much more will have to be done with much less, but it will create resilience and will improve the firm’s enterprise value if and when the business is sold. We turned to M&A advisory firm Wise Rhino to tell us why. 

In yet another fun interview with the firm’s Dick Darian and Peter Campagna, we run through an informative top 10 list of the biggest...

As retirement plan advisors certainly know, the reduction of defined benefit pension plans and the rise of their defined contribution counterparts means more Americans are more responsible for their income in retirement. 

While products and strategies exist to aid workers with accumulation and income, it’s a complicated challenge. Thank goodness Mike De Feo is here to help. De Feo, Head of Defined Contribution Distribution at Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, says it’s finally time to get excited about in-plan retirement income products, and he joins the Executive Interview to discuss why. 

What’s happening with lifetime income products in retirement plans? It’s a loaded question and a major topic but thankfully, we have Brendan McCarthy here to help us sort it all out.

McCarthy, Head of Retirement Investing at Nuveen, is on the front lines of the retirement income battle. He joins us to discuss the challenges of the 401(k) generation, what it will take to get widespread retirement income adoption, and how something called longevity literacy can help.

Sponsored By Nuveen.

The Standard rocked the retirement plan recordkeeping world last October when it announced its acquisition of Securian Financial’s retirement plan recordkeeping business. Part of ongoing industry consolidation, it was major news for 401(k) advisors, sponsors and participants. How well is the integration going, what's next for the players, and how will it affect the retirement space overall? We sit with key insiders for answers.
 
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