TrueChoice Adds Advice Platform: Annuity Moves

In 2019, MetLife assumed about $1.9 billion in Lockheed Martin pension obligations. Those obligations affect about 20,000 Lockheed Martin retirees and beneficiaries.

Legal & General Retirement America, Stamford, Connecticut — the U.S. arm of Legal & General Assurance Society Ltd., London  — has sold a large group annuity to Trinity Industries Inc., a railroad transportation products and services company. Trinity will be using the annuity in a pension risk transfer arrangement involving 7,500 defined benefit pension plan participants. The deal has a value of $355 million, according to Legal & General.

Milliman Inc., Seattle, says the average estimated cost of transferring responsibility for the pension obligations at a large U.S. corporate pension plan was 101.8% of the benefits obligation value in December 2020, down from 104.2% at the end of 2019.

Prudential Retirement, and arm of Prudential Financial Inc., Newark, New Jersey, is joining with NextCapital Group Inc. to set up Advice and Income Engines at Prudential, a new retirement planning and portfolio management system for defined contribution retirement plan participants. Prudential plans to launch the system by March 31.

Equitable, New York, has published a commentary about the value of offering multiple 403(b) plan providers. A 403(b) plan is a kind of defined contribution plan for schools and other nonprofit employers.

Equitable says annual participant contributions are 22% higher in K-12 school districts that offer multiple providers, and that median account balances average $40,000 in the multiple provider districts, compared with $30,000 in the single-provider districts.

— Read Two-Thirds of RIAs Open to Recommending Annuities: Survey, on ThinkAdvisor.

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