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Products March 1, 2011
Collaborative Effort on Retirement Income Solution
MetLife, Inc. and PIMCO have created a retirement income solution that
combines investment and insurance products.
Reported by Rebecca Moore
The two companies will work together to educate advisers about the product. The solution allows a client to purchase PIMCO mutual funds designed to provide systematic real (inflation-adjusted) monthly distributions to help protect against inflation risk, and separately purchase MetLife longevity insurance to provide monthly lifetime income after mutual fund distributions end.
“Inflation is a significant risk for retirees, and the PIMCO Real Income Funds are specifically designed to provide systematic monthly distributions for a specified term, while seeking to preserve retirees’ purchasing power,” said Tom Streiff, Executive Vice President, PIMCO Retirement Product Manager. “Should they reach the end of these distributions, clients still need a retirement income stream that lasts for their rest of their lives.”
PIMCO inflation-adjusted mutual funds seek to continually maintain purchasing power during the applicable and defined distribution period, the company said. The fund distributions are made monthly until all assets have been distributed, either by October 2019 or October 2029, and depending on the fund selected by the client.
The MetLife LIG can then generate income later in life, at a time when all assets from the PIMCO funds have been distributed. Clients can begin to take income from an LIG contract after a minimum two-year waiting period, starting any time between ages 50 to 85.