Products July 21, 2016

Penbridge Offers Guide to Selecting Annuity Buyout Provider

The white paper explains why a review of insurers’ administrative capabilities and practices is such a crucial part of fiduciaries’ responsibilities in light of the Department of Labor’s Interpretive Bulletin 95-1.
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Penbridge Advisors released a white paper titled “’Check Please!’: The Importance of Administration in the Selection of an Annuity Provider,” which provides a comprehensive framework covering the key administrative considerations that fiduciaries should review when selecting an insurer to provide annuities to participants of a defined benefit (DB) pension plan.

The white paper explains why a review of insurers’ administrative capabilities and practices is such a crucial part of fiduciaries’ responsibilities in light of the Department of Labor’s Interpretive Bulletin 95-1. “Particularly at this point in the Information Age,” says Penbridge Co-Founder and Principal Robert Goldbloom, “it is critical for fiduciaries to recognize and address many issues such as cybersecurity specifically because they are now so important to plan participants.”

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“Our intent is that this paper serve as a practical guide to plan fiduciaries,” says Steve Keating, co-founder and principal of Penbridge Advisors. “It should help them to identify the key administration considerations and to ask the right questions on behalf of plan participants.”

Keating added, “Other than financial strength, benefits administration service is the most important factor in the fiduciary selection of an annuity provider.”

The paper is available here.
Products July 21, 2016

Mercer Adds Trends Data to MercerInsight

Mercer suggests the Trends module will be updated on a quarterly basis with real data on investment manager searches, enabling users to create custom reporting and filtering.

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Mercer has announced a significant enhancement to its MercerInsight platform, centered around the development and launch of a new Trends module providing key information about investment manager searches and product fees.

“By providing quarterly manager search activity reported by Mercer consultants and real time data for fees, the Trends module enables institutional investors and asset managers to gain insight into the investment mandate activities of Mercer’s institutional clients and search trends around the world,” the firm explains. Clients can also “compare fees to those of other investment managers in aggregate by asset class, vehicle type, account size, among other data.”

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As the firm explains, MercerInsight is a cloud-based platform for institutional investors and asset managers that houses quantitative and qualitative data from Mercer’s global investment research team.

“Investment managers are often interested in understanding how the fees they charge for their products compare to those of similar products offered by their competitors,” notes Cara Williams, global head of wealth management and technology solutions. “Asset owners also want to know how the fees they are paying fare against those of other providers. This new Trends module was developed with these needs in mind.”

Mercer suggests the Trends module will be updated on a quarterly basis with investment manager searches performed by Mercer, enabling users to manipulate aggregate data and create custom reporting and filtering. Data goes back to 2006, allowing users to perform longer-term analyses. However the fee information in the Trends module is “updated in real time; as soon as an investment manager updates their fees on the database, new information is generated.”

For more information, visit www.mercer.com. 

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