Mark J. Warshawsky has formed a new company, ReLIAS llc,
which is looking to partner with financial and insurance organizations
interested in providing decumulation strategies and products to retired
individuals. Mark advocates combining a systematic withdrawal approach from a
portfolio of diversified assets with a laddered series of relatively small and
regular purchases of single premium life annuities. His general approach anticipates that the
portfolio of diversified assets will eventually be replaced over time by the
purchased single premium life annuities.
Mark has developed an algorithm which maximizes a mathematical function
(the "Expected Utility) which considers (among other things) the
preferences and goals of the retired household for higher income in retirement
and accumulation of greater wealth, as well as the retired household's concern
for risk.
You can read more about Mark's approach and his thoughts
about optimal decumulation strategies in his new website.
For those who wish to "drill-down" more into
his research, I recommend that you look at his recent (January, 2014) Power
Point Presentation in the section which describes his approach.
I worked with Mark when he was the Director of Retirement
Research at Towers Watson. He is one
bright guy. We wish Mark well in his new
endeavor and look forward to more educational material on his website on the
subject of optimal decumulation strategies.
