Product & Service Launches

Vestwell Adds TIAA Lifetime Income Offering

TIAA is offering its target-date series with an in-plan annuity investment to midsize and small retirement plans through a new partnership with Vestwell.

Vestwell will offer plan sponsors, starting in 2025, access to the TIAA Secure Income Account, a guaranteed lifetime income product for defined contribution plans.

Vestwell had been seeing increasing interest in a “lifetime income paycheck” in its regular surveying of plan sponsors, savers and advisers, which fed into ongoing discussions it had been having with TIAA, says Vestwell Founder and CEO Aaron Schumm.“[Lifetime income] was a topic that kept coming up in our conversations and surveys,” Schumm says. “It just became more and more convincing that there was something to be done there.”TIAA’s goal with the partnership is to bring its in-plan income product to middle- and smaller-market plan sponsors, says Phil Maffei, its senior managing director of corporate retirement income products, via email. 

“We see Vestwell as a key player in helping TIAA to bring in-plan lifetime income to the middle and small end of the market that most lifetime income providers have not historically focused on in the past,” Maffei says. 

TIAA Secure Income Account will be available through target-date structures available to 401(k) and 403(b) plans on the Vestwell platform and to Vestwell partner firms. TIAA SIA offers guaranteed interest while participants save for retirement and a “pension-like retirement income” via an annuity in retirement.

American Life Launches New Fixed Indexed Annuity

American Life & Security Corp. has launched a new annuity focused on accumulating savings with principal protection.

The American Life MaxGrowth 10 Fixed Indexed Annuity is for investors who “prioritize accumulation over liquidity, focusing on maximum growth over a 10-year period,” according to the announcement.

The product offers:

• The opportunity to earn interest based on the performance of a chosen market index;
• Protection from market losses for the principal;
• Various crediting strategies, such as annual point-to-point, monthly sum and performance-triggered options, providing flexibility to match financial objectives;
• Tax-deferred growth; and
• Additional premium contributions within the first six months and the option to access the full contract value over five years after five years. That 5×5 annuitization is only available if no withdrawals other than the required minimum distributions have previously been taken.

MaxGrowth is distributed through American Life partners and is currently available for sale in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Utah, as well as the District of Columbia.

Nudge Launches Financial Well-Being Playbook

Financial education firm nudge Global Ltd. has launched a new financial wellness guide for employers to provide effective financial well-being programs.

Nudge’s “Global financial wellbeing playbook” gives tools and insights into the firm’s 300 successful program implementations. These include:

• Guidance and insights from financial wellness on developing tailored programs for workforces;
• Strategies to create personalized programs that meet the diverse needs of employees; and
• Case studies and success stories of financial well-being initiatives.

“We understand the challenges employers face when it comes to building effective financial wellbeing programs,” Jeremy Beament, director and co-founder of nudge, said in a statement. “Our Global financial wellbeing playbook is designed to bridge the gap, providing organizations with the knowledge and resources that we have honed from over two decades of experience, to create programs that not only support employees but also drive meaningful results.”

NAIC Fellowship Graduates 23 Diverse Women in Alternatives Sector

The National Association of Investment Companies announced the graduation of its third cohort of a fellowship program designed to advance ethnically diverse women in the alternative investments industry. The 2024 class of the Women in Alternatives UP Fellowship Program included 23 participants, almost twice as many as in the 2023 cohort, according to the NAIC.

The fellowship is for women with 7 to 12 years of experience who are committed to advancing their careers in alternative investments. It is part of the NAIC’s “Women in Alternatives In, Up & Beyond” initiative.

The six-month UP Fellowship was launched at NAIC’s UPLift Retreat in Washington, D.C., and was followed by a series of monthly webinars for participants that included topics such as mental health, personal branding and leadership development.

The program provided access to senior-level women executives from top U.S. private equity, private credit and venture capital firms, including Jeri Harman, founder and chairman and former CEO of Avante Capital Partners; Maura Reilly Kennedy, managing director at Neuberger Berman; and Leslie Zamora-Murguía, managing director at TPG.

“We’re redefining the landscape of an industry long seen as inaccessible, proving that when given the right support, these talented women succeed and drive innovation and results in the firms they join,” Carmen Ortiz-McGhee, the NAIC’s chief operating officer, said in a statement.

The NAIC’s membership comprises more than 190 diverse-owned alternative investment firms that manage more than $434 billion in assets under management.