Innovative ways of financing retirement

In this day and age where financial innovation is (wrongly!) blamed for the end of capitalism and the world as we know it lock, stock and barrel, the title of SwissRe's latest edition of Sigma is courageous. Nevertheless, it is a comprehensive assessment of the growing role that insurance will have to play in the provision of old age retirement funding, where insurance is to be understood in a functional rather than an institutional sense. 

An important section of the study is dedicated to managing retirement product risks. Longevity risk is identified as prominent among them, but its management is limited by the rather shallow depth and breadth of longevity risk markets. Notably absent from that section, however, are considerations on valuation techniques. If there is one thing that we can learn from the current crisis, then it is how crucially important it is to value & stress test innovative products properly over their entire life cycle.