Life annuities: the players

Ermanno Pitacco

12.1 INTRODUCTION: BROADENING OUR HORIZONS

The actuarial structure of life annuities and the possible innovations in life annuity design have been the main topics of this book. As a logical consequence, individuals and insurers have played a major role in all the chapters.

Nevertheless, closely related issues have naturally arisen, and hence have also been dealt with, for example, income drawdown strategies as possible alternatives to the annuitisation of retirement savings or as components of “hybrid” strategies that include benefits provided by life annuities.

A further broadening of our horizons can help in understanding the complexity of the context in which life annuities and other income strategies should be placed. Towards this aim, we extend our perspective to include other important “players” in the field of pensions and life annuities. These will be addressed in Section 12.2.

Looking at the roles of other players will allow us to capture further innovation aspects, in some cases those arising from innovation in life annuity products and in others those imposed by changing scenarios, as we shall see in Section 12.3.

12.2 THE MAIN PLAYERS

Individuals’