Excerpt from the Executive Summary from Mr Patrick M Liedtke and Dr Kai-Uwe Schanz.

The notion of formal retirement is relatively young. In 1881 Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduced the world’s first pension scheme in Germany. Prior to that, people generally worked “until they dropped”. However, when von Bismarck introduced his revolutionary scheme of protecting workers in their old age, it was only a very small minority of the population that ever reached the official retirement age of 65 years—then a full 20 years higher than the average life expectancy of a German worker. The scheme was never meant to become a social achieve...Read More

With U.S. interest rates at their lowest since right after World War II, chief financial officers (CFOs) at North American life insurance companies — particularly those with significant exposure to fixed-rate products — are under substantial financial pressures. According to data from a recent survey from global professional services company Towers Watson (NYSE, NASDAQ: TW), Life Insurance CFO Survey: Low Interest Rate Environment, life insurance CFOs said the current low interest rate environment is their primary business concern, as almost half (45%) of the survey respondents emphasized that a prolonged low interest rate environment is the g...Read More