1、 Is Life Insurance Good for Retirement Planning? At first glance, the life insurance industry appears to be in trouble as it faces the millennium. As the large baby boomer market ages, these consumers have shifted their financial focus away from life insurance and towards assuring their future comfo
2、rt.Although the industry has long recognized that its future lies in more in financial products than in life insurance, it has lately been losing its share of the retirement market. Between 1992 and 1994 alone, insurers share of 401(k) plans slipped from 34% to 30%,while mutual funds share leaped fr
3、om 26% to 37%. Tax-deferred annuities sold by insurance companies fell in share of Americans total retirement assets to 16.61% in 1996 from its peak in 1990 of 22.56%. In individual retirement accounts, while banks market share fell dramatically from 61% in 1985 to 18.4% in 1996, insurance companies
4、 saw mutual funds and brokerage houses gain the fattest slices of the banks loss. Such developments can, however, be misleading. Two experts who believe that the life insurance industrys picture is far brighter than it first appears are Paul Hoffman and Anthony M. Santomero of the Wharton Schools Fi
5、nancial Institutions Center. Their paper, Life Insurance Firms in the Retirement Market: Is the News All Bad? answers their own titular question with a decided no. Hoffman and Santomero point to a number of facts that, while not completely reassuring to the industry, definitely show some profitable
6、opportunities. A revised version of this paper appeared in the Journal of the American Society of CLU and ChFC. First of all, retirement planning is a huge and growing market. Contrary to reports that have appeared in the past, baby boomers are saving more rapidly than their parents. And, face it, t
7、hey have to: The decline of defined benefit plans, which Americans once counted on so heavily for their golden years, demands that they look to other financial instruments to protect their futures. That opens up new sales opportunities for group and individual retirement plans sold by financial comp
8、anies, including insurers. And annuities, which are insurers biggest retirement-oriented product, are growing in importance as a share of Americans wealth. Moreover, annuities have remained stable as a percentage of retirement assets. Second, while mutual funds and brokerage houses have been expandi
9、ng their market share, their inroads have been mostly at the expense of depository institutions, not life insurance companies. Third, the retirement market is a growing financial feast, even if insurers do have to compete a little harder for their share of the bounty. By the end of 1996, total priva
10、te retirement assets in the U.S. stood at almost $5.1 trillion, having increased as a share of total national wealth from 10.6% in 1983 to 13.6%. There has also been a decided shift in the nature of the nations retirement assets. In 1980, total defined benefit assets in the U.S. were 2.5 times defin
11、ed contribution assets (mostly, 401(k) plans). By 1993, the latest date for which figures are available, total funds of both types of plans were almost equal. From 1984 to 1993, total U.S. 401(k) assets alone grew from about $92 billion to $616 billion, increasing from 0.74% of Americans total wealt
12、h to 2.18%. As a share of total retirement capital, 401(k)s rose from about 7% in 1984 to 16.6% in 1993, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Individual retirement accounts, although no longer as attractive as a saving vehicle due to the loss of most tax advantages in 1986, still capture a hug
13、e amount of total retirement assets. By the end of 1996, savings in IRAs had swollen to $1.35 trillion, representing around 3% of U.S. wealth. Most of the growth was from gains in the equity market rather than in new contributions. Meanwhile, mutual funds and brokerage firms picked up more than 43%
14、of the depository institutions drop in IRA market share, increasing their own share from 15.8% to 37.9% for mutual funds and 14.7% to 35.8% in the case of brokerages. Insurers share of the IRA market actually fell from 10.4% in 1990 to 7.8% in 1996. The annuity market represent insurers best hopes t
15、o retain a significant share of the retirement market. In 1993, annuities represented almost 20% of the market, following IRAs 23.4%. Insurance companies share of this huge financial stash stood at almost 76% in 1993, equal to more than $1 trillion, of which about $734 billion was earmarked for reti
16、rement. (These figures only include tax-advantaged annuities). Life insurance carriers, then, are likely to retain significant sales and profit growth in the retirement market. Still, the industry needs to find new ways to grow. Its recent binge of mergers and acquisitions has improved cost efficien
17、cy and diminished competition among carriers, but is scarcely enough to offset inroads by brokers and mutual funds. Even banks have declared their intentions to market competitive new instruments in the annuities market. A disturbing development for insurance companies is their loss of share of reve
18、nue, from 55% of sales fees for variable annuities in 1994 to only 43% the next year. The Wall Street Journal has predicted that insurers share of these fees could fall to 30% by the year 2000. With these developments in mind, strategy for life insurance firms in the decade ahead need to aim at stop
19、ping their skid out of the retirement market, where they have fallen from a 22.7% market share in 1983 to 18% in 1996. Elements of a successful strategy might include: 1. Retain dominance in annuities by increasing cost efficiency in delivery and holding down fees, to maintain competitiveness with o
20、ther financial services. 2. Slow down loss of market share for IRA accounts. While this market has diminished in terms of new contributions, financial returns on existing IRA assets have grown to 12% of insurance company pension assets as of 1996, from 3.3% in 1983. 3. Jump with both feet into the e
21、xploding 401(k) market, with particular emphasis on pursuing the fat market for rollover accounts. For the life insurance industry, the stakes are clear. While its decline in competitiveness is not as serious as widely proclaimed, its share of the retirement market has been falling by more than 1% a
22、 year in recent years. Because its income from annuities has surpassed its income from life insurance since 1985, clearly it must continue to pursue the retirement segment. Now, however, it also needs to look to ways of solidifying and perhaps expanding its share of the 401(k) and IRA niches. Insure
23、rs strength is that they can leverage a wide spectrum of products to help them to protect their presence in the retirement marketplace. For example, they can offer one-stop shopping for a combination of retirement income, long-term care coverage and estate protection. By offering consumers products
24、that blend traditional risk protection with asset management, insurers may be able to protect their own future. 人寿保险是否有利于退休金计划 乍看之下，寿险业出现了已面临了千年的麻烦。随着婴儿潮时代的到来，这些消费者已经将财务重点远离寿险而转向为保障未来生活的舒适。 虽然业界早已认识到，它的未来在于金融产品超过寿险，它近期已逐渐失去其退休市场份额。 仅在 1992 年到 1994 年间，保险公司的份额 401（ K）计划从 34%下滑到 30%，而共同基金的份额从 26%跃升至 37
25、%。保险公司的销售税递延年金占美国人退休资产总额的比例从在 1990 年峰值的 22.56%下跌到 16.61%。在个人退休账户中，银行在 1996 年的市场份额从 1985 年的 61%急剧下降到 18.4%，保险公司看到共同基金和券商获得了银行损失中最大的那部分。 然而，这种发展是误导。两位专家认为，寿险业的图品远远闪亮于它们首次出现是保罗霍夫曼和安东尼 M.桑托默罗沃顿商学院的金融中心。它们的论文，“在退休金市场的保险业：完全是坏消息？” 回答它们自己定义的问题的结论是“否” Hoffman 和圣多马罗 指出了很多事实，并不是所有好的行业都一定会表现出一定的盈利机会。本文的修订版中出现的
26、美国社会 CLU 和 CHFC 的杂志。 首先，退休金计划是一个巨大的不断增长的市场。然而恰恰相反，报告 显示婴儿潮一代的储蓄比它们的父母更多 。面对这种情况，它们不得不下降界定福利计划， 鉴于美国人曾经严重负担于他们的黄金时期，现在要求它们寻求其他的金融工具 ，以保护它们的未来。这开辟了金融公司，包括保险公司销售团体和个人退休计划的新的销售机会。还有年金是保险公司最大的以退休为导向的产品 ，作为美国人的财富份额越来越重要。此外，年金一直保持稳定的退休资产比例。 第二，而互惠基金及经纪行已扩大自己的市场份额，其进军已大多在存款机构，非寿险公司的费用。 第三，即使保险公司争夺赏金的份额有点困难，
27、退休市场仍然是一个不断增长 的金融盛宴。到 1996 年底，在美国的私人退休总资产为几乎达到 5.1 万亿美元后，作为国家总财富的份额从 1983 年的 10.6增加至 13.6。 同时也出现了国家的退休资产的性质的决定性转变。在 1980 年，美国的利益总资产被定义为界定公款资产的 2.5 倍（主要是 401（ k）计划）。这两种类型的计划资金总额从1993 年的最新数字开始就几乎相等。 从 1984 年到 1993 年，占美国 401（ K）资产仅增长约为 920 亿美元至 616 亿美元，美国人的财富总额从 0.74提高到 2.18。在 1993年，作为总退休资产的一部分， 401（ k）退休资本总额的比重，从 1984 年的约 7上升至 16.6，根据美国劳工部。 个人退休账户，虽然不再有像 1986 年那样节省车辆开支来降低大量的税收优惠的吸引力。仍然捕捉到数额巨大的退休资产总额。到 1996 年底， 退休帐户储蓄已经肿 升 至 1.35万亿美元，占约 3的美国财富。大部分的增长是在 股市的收益，而不是在新的贡献。同时，共同基金和券商拿起超过 43的存款 使 机构在爱尔兰共和军的市场份额下降，并 增加自己的份额从 15.8到 37.9的 共同基金和 14.7到 35.8的 券商 。 保险在 IRA
