3 Annuity Rule Changes on IRI's New Wish List

News February 28, 2023 at 02:55 PM
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The Insured Retirement Institute has an idea for helping clients move individual retirement account money into more interesting income annuities.

IRI also has ideas for building annuitization options into 401(k) plans and other employer-sponsored defined contribution retirement plans.

The Washington-based group has included the ideas in its new 2023 Federal Retirement Security Blueprint.

What It Means

Your clients could soon get a new way to use the money in an IRA or 401(k) plan account.

IRI

IRI is one of the groups that helped lobby for passage of key financial services provisions included in the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (Secure) Act and the Secure 2.0 Act.

One of the ideas in the blueprint, creating national rules for remote online notarizations, was included in a bill, H.R. 1059, that sailed through the House on a voice vote just hours after IRI unveiled the blueprint.

House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., emphasized Tuesday, during a committee bill markup meeting, that he wants the committee to work in a bipartisan way to pass bills.

McHenry's focus on getting things done could make this a good time for IRI and other insurance industry organizations to pass bills.

The Annuity Provisions

The IRI blueprint includes a wide range of ideas, including proposals for requiring all but the smallest employers to enroll workers in retirement plans automatically, allowing caregivers who leave the workforce temporarily to make extra contributions, updating electronic document distribution rules and making retirement plans available to cannabis-based businesses.

Three provisions directly relate to retail annuities or in-plan annuities.

1. A QLAC Upgrade

The qualified longevity annuity contract is a vehicle that a client can use to put up to $200,000 from an IRA or retirement plan account into an annuity with an income stream that's guaranteed to last for the holder's entire lifetime. The annuity can't be tapped until an advanced age, typically 85.

One QLAC marketing challenge: a product menu based on plain vanilla fixed annuities.

IRI wants to make the menu more interesting by letting insurers put indexed annuities and variable annuities with guaranteed benefits into QLACs.

2. In-Plan Annuity Liquidity Rules

IRI believes that lifetime income annuities would make a great "qualified default investment alternative" for retirement plan enrollees who have not told the plan how they want to invest their money, because lifetime income annuities provide higher returns than many other QDIA options.

One obstacle to using lifetime income annuities that way is U.S. Department of Labor regulations that require that a participant be able to get to the assets in a QDIA within three months.

IRI wants Congress to let plans use an annuity that provides benefit guarantees and locks assets in for longer than three months as the QDIA for a portion of a retirement plan participant's contributions.

3. Plan Default Distribution Option Rules

Workers who retire need to start taking assets out of their retirement plans.

IRI wants Congress to let the plan sponsors use lifetime income annuities as the default asset distribution option, as long as the plans tell the participants about the default annuitization option and give the participants a chance to opt out.

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