UAW Members at GM, Stellantis to Gain Access to Hueler Lifetime Income Solutions

While the United Auto Workers at General Motors and Stellantis will not see the return of their company pensions as a result of their recent contract negotiations, they will soon have access to Hueler Income Solutions—an online platform that offers retirement income annuity products.  

According to Kelli Hueler, founder and CEO of Hueler Companies, GM asked her company to engage in the bargaining discussions with the union to show that the company would provide a pension-like option to workers. The program was key to reaching a consensus among the parties relative to lifetime income coverage, according to Hueler. 

Both GM and Stellantis had already made Hueler’s program available for their salaried positions. According to Hueler, the program will now be rolled out to union-covered employees in the coming weeks. 

“It’s really gratifying … to get to this place where your program can be acceptable to all parties in a situation where there’s a need for a resolution,” Hueler says. “We always give plan sponsors the opportunity to see how participants can really be in their own driver’s seat about their income and they can model options to think about what their household needs are. It’s a tool [that] feels pretty universal when you’re talking to two groups that have a differing mindset [and] they need to come to some sort of agreement.” 

In addition to asking for wage increases, the reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments and the elimination of wage tiers, the UAW members initially asked for the restoration of their defined benefit pension plan, which shut down in 2007. The automakers ultimately did not agree to this demand, but they did agree to a 10% boost in employer contributions to the workers’ 401(k)s, along with current retirees receiving annual bonuses for the first time in 15 years—a cumulative $1.25 billion boost in total benefits. 

“Traditional pension structures are wonderful if you can have them in place,” Hueler says. “But at the same time, they do have their own limitations. One thing about the [Hueler] program that’s a big advantage is that people can make partial decisions. They don’t have to have an all-or-nothing choice.” 

Hueler Income Solutions, located in Minneapolis, offers retirement plan participants the option of purchasing an institutionally priced annuity. The company started offering lifetime income to the institutional marketplace in 2004 and designed its platform to provide what it calls personal pensions for “transitioning investors.” 

The Hueler platform is independent and can be adjusted to help recordkeepers and other service providers meet the needs of plan sponsor clients.  

Hueler explains that users can choose when they want their lifetime income to begin, and the technology seeks to ensure that the user is given the right type of contract, such as a single premium immediate annuity offering a guaranteed stream of income. Users can also select to whom the annuity is designed to benefit, themselves or a partner or spouse. In addition, participants can decide the amount of money they want to annuitize, with a minimum of $10,000. 

There is a one-time 1% transaction fee built into every system transaction to support the technology, Hueler explains. 

“But if I’m, let’s say, 55 [years old] and I’m not retiring, and I just want to start getting educated, I can run as many quotes as I want from now until the time I retire,” Hueler says. “Technology has allowed us to create something super user-friendly, very simple to understand … with full disclosure of any costs.” 

Hueler Income Solutions announced in September 2023 that U.S. salaried employees and retirees at Stellantis would gain access to the solution’s Think Income Program, which allows participants to use an estimator that shows how using a portion of a participant’s savings can guarantee that person a certain amount of income in retirement. 

Other large plan sponsors also currently use the program, including IBM and Boeing.