IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/rmgtin/v8y2005i2p239-255.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Life Annuity Insurance Versus Self‐Annuitization: An Analysis From the Perspective of the Family

Author

Listed:
  • Hato Schmeiser
  • Thomas Post

Abstract

When comparing investment in an immediate life annuity with a payout‐equivalent investment fund decumulation plan (self‐annuitization), previous research focused on shortfall probabilities of self‐annuitization. Chances of self‐annuitization (i.e., bequests) typically have not been addressed. We argue that heirs might be willing to bear the shortfall risk of the retiree's self‐annuitization since they might benefit from a bequest. Our article proposes a “family strategy” in which heirs receive the remaining investment fund on the retiree's death, but are obliged to finance the retiree if the fund becomes exhausted. We estimate the chance and risk profile of this “family strategy” from the heirs' perspective using German capital and annuity market data. We show that in many cases, our “family strategy” offers enormous chance potential with low shortfall risk. Finally, we discuss some limitations of the proposed “family strategy” when putting the concept into practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Hato Schmeiser & Thomas Post, 2005. "Life Annuity Insurance Versus Self‐Annuitization: An Analysis From the Perspective of the Family," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 8(2), pages 239-255, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:rmgtin:v:8:y:2005:i:2:p:239-255
    DOI: j.1540-6296.2005.00058.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6296.2005.00058.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/j.1540-6296.2005.00058.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Spivak, Avia, 1981. "The Family as an Incomplete Annuities Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 372-391, April.
    2. Blake, David & Cairns, Andrew J. G. & Dowd, Kevin, 2003. "Pensionmetrics 2: stochastic pension plan design during the distribution phase," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 29-47, August.
    3. Jeffrey R. Brown, 2003. "Redistribution and Insurance: Mandatory Annuitization With Mortality Heterogeneity," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 70(1), pages 17-41, March.
    4. Brown, Jeffrey R., 2001. "Private pensions, mortality risk, and the decision to annuitize," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 29-62, October.
    5. Milevsky, Moshe Arye & Ho, Kwok & Robinson, Chris, 1997. "Asset Allocation via the Conditional First Exit Time or How to Avoid Outliving Your Money," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 53-70, July.
    6. Bernheim, B Douglas & Shleifer, Andrei & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "The Strategic Bequest Motive," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 151-182, July.
    7. Albrecht, Peter & Maurer, Raimond, 2001. "Self-Annuitization, Ruin Risk in Retirement and Asset Allocation: The Annuity Benchmark," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 01-35, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    8. Albrecht, Peter & Maurer, Raimond, 2002. "Self-Annuitization, Consumption Shortfall in Retirement and Asset Allocation: The Annuity Benchmark," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(3), pages 269-288, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stamos, Michael Z., 2008. "Optimal consumption and portfolio choice for pooled annuity funds," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 56-68, August.
    2. Sanders, E.A.T., 2011. "Annuity market imperfections," Other publications TiSEM 227f9684-ccba-4646-99bc-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Lambregts, Timo R. & Schut, Frederik T., 2020. "Displaced, disliked and misunderstood: A systematic review of the reasons for low uptake of long-term care insurance and life annuities," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Post & Helmut Gründl & Hato Schmeiser, 2006. "Portfolio management and retirement: what is the best arrangement for a family?," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 20(3), pages 265-285, September.
    2. Ivica Dus & Raimond Maurer & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2003. "Betting on Death and Capital Markets in Retirement: A Shortfall Risk Analysis of Life Annuities versus Phased Withdrawal Plans," Working Papers wp063, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    3. Ivica Dus & Raimond Maurer & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2005. "Betting on Death and Capital Markets in Retirement: A Shortfall Risk Analysis of Life Annuities," NBER Working Papers 11271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Wolfram Horneff & Raimond Maurer & Olivia Mitchell & Ivica Dus, 2006. "Optimizing the Retirement Portfolio: Asset Allocation, Annuitization, and Risk Aversion," Working Papers wp124, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    5. Stamos, Michael Z., 2008. "Optimal consumption and portfolio choice for pooled annuity funds," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 56-68, August.
    6. Horneff, Wolfram J. & Maurer, Raimond H. & Mitchell, Olivia S. & Dus, Ivica, 2008. "Following the rules: Integrating asset allocation and annuitization in retirement portfolios," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 396-408, February.
    7. Yawen Hwang & Shihchieh Chang & Shuhan Yang, 2012. "Measuring the consequences of pension reform applying liquidation and longevity considerations," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 243-255, September.
    8. Di Giacinto, Marina & Federico, Salvatore & Gozzi, Fausto & Vigna, Elena, 2014. "Income drawdown option with minimum guarantee," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(3), pages 610-624.
    9. Huang, H. & Milevsky, M. A. & Wang, J., 2004. "Ruined moments in your life: how good are the approximations?," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 421-447, June.
    10. Marina Di Giacinto & Bjarne Højgaard & Elena Vigna, 2010. "Optimal time of annuitization in the decumulation phase of a defined contribution pension scheme," Working Papers 2010-08, Universita' di Cassino, Dipartimento di Economia e Giurisprudenza.
    11. Kaschützke, B. & Maurer, R., 2016. "Investing and Portfolio Allocation for Retirement," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 567-608, Elsevier.
    12. Milevsky, Moshe A. & Young, Virginia R., 2008. "Erratum to: "Annuitization and asset allocation": [Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control 31 (9) (2007) 3138-3177]," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 3743-3744, November.
    13. Blake, David & Boardman, Tom, 2010. "Spend more today: Using behavioural economics to improve retirement expenditure decisions," MPRA Paper 34234, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Russell Gerrard & Bjarne Højgaard & Elena Vigna, 2008. "Choosing the Optimal Annuitization Time Post Retirement," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 76, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    15. Thaut, Michael, 2003. "Die individuelle Vorteilhaftigkeit der privaten Rentenversicherung: Steuervorteile, Lebenserwartung und Stornorisiken," Tübinger Diskussionsbeiträge 264, University of Tübingen, School of Business and Economics.
    16. Han, Nan-Wei & Hung, Mao-Wei, 2015. "The investment management for a downside-protected equity-linked annuity under interest rate risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 113-124.
    17. David Blake & Tom Boardman, 2014. "Spend More Today Safely: Using Behavioral Economics to Improve Retirement Expenditure Decisions With SPEEDOMETER Plans," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 17(1), pages 83-112, March.
    18. Milevsky, Moshe A., 2020. "Swimming with wealthy sharks: longevity, volatility and the value of risk pooling," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 217-246, April.
    19. Goedde-Menke, Michael & Lehmensiek-Starke, Moritz & Nolte, Sven, 2014. "An empirical test of competing hypotheses for the annuity puzzle," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 75-91.
    20. Yuh, Yoonkyung & Yang, Jaehwan, 2011. "The Valuation and Redistribution Effect of the Korea National Pension," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 52(1), pages 113-142, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:rmgtin:v:8:y:2005:i:2:p:239-255. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1098-1616 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.