Annuities can provide a reliable source of retirement income | lansingstatejournal.com | Lansing State Journal
It was the height of the dot-com boom, when workers were retiring early on their double-digit tech-stock winnings and day trading was all the rage.
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There stood Kelli Hueler, before an audience of financial professionals, explaining the urgent need for affordable annuities so future retirees won't run out of money.
"We were painfully ahead of our time," she said, chuckling as she recalled the day that dull, dependable, unfashionable annuities became her passion.
Since then, Hueler, who runs her six-person Hueler Associates out of an office park in Eden Prairie, Minn., has created a unique one-stop shop for retirees wanting to turn 401(k) assets into an income stream.
Think of Hueler's annuity marketplace, called Income Solutions, as the Travelocity or Orbitz of annuities. The Web site at www.incomesolutions.com is a place where 401(k) participants with access through their employee benefits can compare monthly payouts promised by various insurers and select the best.
Hueler and her team are setting out on a gargantuan task - to convince a generation of do-it-yourself investors who don't trust annuities to embrace them as a way to ensure they won't outlast their money. In recent years, annuities have only made headlines as unsuitable investments sold to the elderly.
But Hueler and other experts argue that good annuities are an idea whose time is now. With pension plans and Social Security benefits on the decline and retirees living longer with inadequate 401(k) balances, running out of retirement money is a top fear of the baby boom generation.
Jody Strakosch, MetLife's director for institutional income annuities, said the company doesn't typically compete against other insurers as it does through Income Solutions. But MetLife believes "income annuities are really, really critical for baby boomers."
In five years, Income Solutions has attracted 10 insurance companies, large retirement plan providers such as Hewitt Associates, Citigroup's Citistreet and T. Rowe Price, plus companies such as IBM and Boston University. As many as 250 retirement plans are either offering Hueler's comparison tool to employees or considering its adoption.
Currently, Income Solutions is available only to individuals whose employers or retirement-plan providers offer it, or clients of financial advisers that belong to the National Association of Personal Financial Advisers.
