Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America has teamed up with Morningstar Investment Management LLC to help individuals allocate their retirement savings to its annuity products through the Morningstar Retirement Manager service.
The Allianz Lifetime Income+ Annuity with the Lifetime Income Benefit will be the first Allianz Life product to be added as Allianz Life enters the defined contribution market, according to the Aug. 17 announcement.
Morningstar Retirement Manager is a managed accounts and advice service that helps individuals with personalized and independent advice on how much to save, how to invest, when to take Social Security and more.
The addition of the Allianz Life annuity means Morningstar Retirement Manager users with access to the annuity through their retirement plan can contribute to a new product designed to help them mitigate against risk in retirement via guaranteed income, the announcement further explains. Only individuals whose retirement plans offers both Morningstar Retirement Manager and the Allianz Life annuity will have access to this expanded service offering.
“As a new entrant into this market, our relationship with Morningstar Investment Management puts in place an immediate and strong infrastructure that will enable us to better reach and serve the growing defined contribution market,” notes Matt Gray, Head of Employer Markets at Allianz Life. “This relationship will serve to simplify the integration of annuities into sponsored plans, which is an important step in making guaranteed income options more widely available.”
“Morningstar Retirement Manager has been helping retirees spend down their retirement savings in a sustainable way for over a decade,” said Brock Johnson, president of Global Retirement and Workplace Solutions at Morningstar Investment Management. “Our ability to help individuals determine how to allocate to guaranteed income products like Allianz Life Income+ gives us more flexibility to help individuals achieve their retirement goals.”
