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Life Health > Annuities > Variable Annuities

MassMutual Adds an Annuity Cushion for the Anxious

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Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company has expanded a variable annuity investment menu to provide comfort for the moderately nervous.

The Springfield, Massachusetts-based company is adding the Cboe Vest U.S. Large Cap 10% Buffer Strategies VI Fund to the list of funds available through its MassMutual Envision Variable Annuity contract.

The fund is the first buffer fund on Envision fund list. It can protect a client who chooses the fund option against up to 10% in market losses. In exchange, the client must accept a cap on market gains. The cap is tied to S&P 500 levels and changes every month.

Phil Michalowski, MassMutual’s head of annuity product, said the fund can help retirement savers who have concerns about all of the market volatility they have seen in recent years. Many “want to make sure their retirement assets grow and are protected at the same time,” he said.

What It Means

Clients are happy the market has bounced back in recent weeks but are not counting on it to stay up.

The Mood

MassMutual mapped out consumers’ financial uncertainty last month when it released the results of an online poll of about 1,000 U.S. residents ages 18 and older in May.

About 80% of the participants said they were worried about the effect of a recession on their daily finances, and 65% of the participants in what MassMutual classified as the Generation X age group — people born from 1965 through 1975 — said increases in housing costs are already hurting their finances.

Traditionally, advisors have encouraged older investors, who have less time to overcome asset losses, to use a more cautious investment strategy than younger investors, but MassMutual found that millennials — born from 1986 through 1996 — were about as interested in investments with lower risk, and lower returns, as the Gen X participants.

The Fund

Cboe Vest Financial has been offering buffer strategies in SEC-registered funds since 2016.

The fund MassMutual added was launched in February.

Guardian has added the fund to the Guardian ProFreedom Variable Annuity B Share menu.

Credit: swissa/Adobe Stock


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