Administration July 26, 2012

Women Face Retirement Security Challenges

July 26, 2012 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Over the last decade, working women’s access to and participation in employer-sponsored retirement plans have improved relative to men’s, but they still face retirement security challenges.
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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found from 1998 to 2009, women surpassed men in their likelihood of working for an employer that offered a pension plan, largely because the proportion of men covered by a plan declined. As employers have continued to terminate their defined benefit (DB) plans and have switched to defined contribution (DC) plans, the number of women who worked for employers that offered a DC plan increased.

Correspondingly, women’s participation rates in DC plans rose slightly over this same period, while men’s fell,  narrowing the participation difference between genders to one percentage point.

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However, women contributed to their DC plans at lower levels than men. They also continued to have less retirement income on average and live in higher rates of poverty than men in their age group.

The composition of women’s income varied only slightly, in part, because their main income sources—Social Security and DB benefits—were shielded from fluctuations in the market. Women, especially widows and those age 80 and older, depended on Social Security benefits for a larger percentage of their income than men.

In 2010, 16% of women age 65 and over depended solely on Social Security for income compared with 12% of men. At the same time, the share of household income women received from earnings increased over the period, but was consistently lower than for men. Moreover, women’s median income was approximately 25% lower than men’s over the last decade, and in 2010, the poverty rate for women in this age group was nearly two times higher than for men.

Women’s household income, on average, fell by 4% with divorce, almost twice the size of decline that men experienced. For widowhood, women’s household income fell by 37%—while men’s declined by only 22%. Unemployment also had a detrimental effect on income security, though the effects were similar for women and men; household assets and income fell 7% to 9%

Policy options that address the income security challenges women face in retirement could include expanding existing tax incentives to save for retirement or improving access to annuities.

Increasing Social Security benefits for widows could provide additional income for women who have few options to increase their retirement savings, but would also increase costs to the Social Security program and have implications for its long-term solvency.

Deals and People July 26, 2012

Mutual of Omaha Appoints Three to Leadership Positions

July 26, 2012 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Mutual of Omaha’s Retirement Plans Division named Diane Kolvek and J. Michael Peddicord as regional sales directors, and Robert Nourse as national accounts channel manager. 
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Kolvek will support the company’s regional sales managers located in the Western region of the U.S., fostering relationships with third-party administrators (TPAs), and is based in Omaha, Nebraska. She joined Mutual of Omaha in 2008 as a Retirement Plans senior channel manager, and has nearly 20 years of experience in sales and relationship management supporting 401(k) product areas at Fidelity, Guardian Life Insurance Company and ReliaStar. Kolvek earned her bachelor’s degree from Northwest Missouri State University.

Peddicord will be responsible for leading the Retirement Plans Division’s TPA Channel. He will also support company’s regional sales managers located in the Eastern region of the country by cultivating relationships with TPAs in this area. He is based in Columbus, Ohio. Since receiving his bachelor’s degree from Capital University, Peddicord gained experience from various leadership roles at Legg Mason and Nationwide Financial Services, and most recently served as vice president of sales for Principal Financial Group.

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Nourse brings more than 25 years of experience in financial services to his position, most recently as vice president and senior relationship manager at Nationwide Financial, and with sales and leadership positions at The Guardian Life Insurance Company before that. He will be responsible for managing relationships with the company’s national broker/dealer alliances, and is based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Nourse holds a bachelor’s degree from Xavier University.

“One of our strategic initiatives is to place top talent into leadership positions that support the sustainable growth and distribution of our product line,” said Seth Friedman, 401(k) national sales director for Mutual of Omaha. “These individuals will bring solid leadership support to our regional sales managers and advisers, helping Mutual of Omaha continue to build a competitive retirement plan experience that benefits both the plan sponsor and their participants.”


 

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