Annuities deserve a reputation for being too complicated and expensive, new product Standardized and inexpensive. Still, there is the lingering problem of “not wanting to trust insurance companies,” Yale University economist Robert Shiller wrote me in an email.
From a practitioner’s perspective, we interviewed Ryan Pinney, president of the Pinney Insurance Center, an insurance agency broker in Roseville, California. (Pinney also has a direct-to-consumer company, WholesaleInsurance.net.) He argues that anyone willing to let go of large chunks of their savings all at once, even if it’s for a good reason, is not comparable. I said I was in the minority. Buy an annuity that pays monthly checks for the rest of your life. Warshawsky’s product has to do that.
Pinney introduced me to OneAmerica Financial Partners, an insurance company in Indianapolis that sells a combined annuity and long-term care insurance product. But Dennis Martin, OneAmerica’s president of personal life and financial services, told me his company’s product is nothing like what his Warshawsky had in mind. One of the differences he doesn’t have to convert the pool of funds in the account into an immediate annuity. They can choose to use the money to pay for long-term care, but any unused funds are paid upon death. Therefore, the natural hedge on which Warshawsky’s conception relies does not exist.
Mark Iwley, a part-time senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former senior adviser to the Treasury Secretary, said: “Mark has done a very good job on this and I think his combination concept is promising.” . But “consumer protection, transparent and competitively priced annuities have been a challenge for decades to get people to buy and the industry to provide them,” he said. said. He said the long-term care insurance market “hasn’t worked well for years.” If you don’t like broccoli and brussels sprouts, you won’t like the broccoli and brussels sprouts salad. And again, hope springs forever.
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Regarding your skepticism about the Buy American rule: You might want to visit a few towns in New York or Massachusetts where factories and industries have closed and their products have been offshored to low-cost areas such as China and India. No. The United States is destroying its manufacturing and production capacity. You become strategically dependent on your enemies rather than your allies.
Ian A. Crossley
Brixham, England
The Maritime Administration’s recent decision denies ports of call the ability to procure cargo handling equipment from abroad on subsidies and will almost certainly limit the historic funding effectiveness of bipartisan infrastructure legislation.
Chris Conner
washington dc
The author is President of the Association of American Port Authority.
I’m thinking about your newsletter about lessons from the Super Bowl. To make sure your team goes all out on every down, play to total target points in the 4th quarter, not until time runs out. The NBA did this at last year’s All-Star Game.
Michael McCarthy
huntington beach, california
