BlackRock is setting up a LifePath Paycheck annuitization program with annuities from Equitable and Brighthouse. (Credit: rblfmr/Shutterstock)
BlackRock Inc. has picked life insurance units of Equitable Holdings and Brighthouse Financial Inc. to help it provide an annuity-based lifetime income program for U.S. retirement plan sponsors.
The new LifePath Paycheck program will combine a 401(k) plan or other defined contribution plan with a target date investment arrangement — a fund designed to tilt toward lower-risk assets as the user nears retirement age.
The annuity contracts "will not limit the daily liquidity of the target date strategy and will provide plan participants with the option to use a portion of their plan account balance at retirement to purchase fixed individual retirement annuities from the insurers that will provide guaranteed lifetime income," BlackRock said Wednesday.
The participants can buy the annuities from Equitable Holdings' AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company or a Brighthouse life insurance company subsidiary, according to BlackRock.
AXA Equitable is the entity in its corporate family that goes by the name Equitable.
The Brighthouse subsidiaries involved in the BlackRock arrangement will be Brighthouse Life Insurance Company of Charlotte, North Carolina, in most of the country and Brighthouse Life Insurance Company of New York in New York state.
