History

1600's
1700's
1812
1875
1905
1919
1921
1926
1935
1940
1942
1960
1974
1980
1990
1995
2000
2005
2006
2010
2015
2020

Tontines become popular with European governments to pay for wars and public works projects. A tontine gave each participant income for life, with the payments increasing to the survivors as the other participants passed away. Payments ceased upon the death of all participants.

The British Parliament authorized annuity sales. Annuities became popular among European “high society” as a form of prevention from a fall from grace, unavailable in other riskier investments.

The Pennsylvania Company for the Granting of Annuities was founded.

American Express established the first private pension plan to create a stable, career oriented workforce. By 1899 there are 13 private pensions in the United States.

Andrew Carnegie established the Teacher’s Pension Fund eventually becoming the Teacher’s Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) in 1918 to provide annuities to educators.

Over 300 private pension plans exist, covering approximately 15 percent of the nation’s wage and salary employees. The growth of pension coverage is attributed to employers’ desire to attract workers, reduce labor turnover, and more [humanely] remove older, less productive employees.

The Revenue Act of 1921 exempts trust income coming from stock bonus or profit sharing plans from an employee’s current taxable income.

The Revenue Act of 1926 exempts trust income coming from pension plans from an employee’s current taxable income.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Social Security is essentially a lifetime income annuity. Life expectancy in 1935 is about 60 years at birth. Individuals who reach the age of 65 can expect to live, on average, another 12 years.

Ida May Fuller became the first Social Security recipient. She received 35 years of payments for a total of $22,000.

The Revenue Act of 1942 adds a numerical nondiscrimination coverage test and a general nondiscrimination test for benefits and contributions for a pension or retirement plan to be qualified under the Code.

18.7 million private-sector workers (41 percent of all private-sector workers) are covered by a pension plan.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is enacted. The Act requires participant disclosures, establishes vesting schedules, sets minimum funding rules, limits annual contributions and annual pension benefits, and requires that a joint and survivor annuity be provided to an employee who retires at

35.9 million private-sector workers (46 percent of all private-sector workers) are covered by a pension plan. Dietrich & Associates is established to specialize in utilizing group annuity contracts to fund the termination of pension plans and guarantee benefits to participants.

39.5 million private-sector workers (43 percent of all private-sector workers) are covered by a pension plan. 11.5 million private-sector workers are covered only by defined contribution plans.

The Department of Labor issues interpretive bulletin 95-1 requiring pension plan sponsors to use only “safest available annuity providers” when using annuities to fund pension obligations and to utilize “independent experts” to analyze insurance companies to comply with their fiduciary obligations.

DIETRICH surpasses a milestone of having provided more than 1,000 pension plans with group annuity contracts guaranteeing benefits for more than 100,000 participants as an “independent expert” and largest provider of annuity contracts for pension plans nationally.

Dietrich & Associates pioneers and markets the concept of utilizing group annuity contracts to fund specific retiree pension plan obligations for plan sponsors to transfer pension risk to insurance companies, originally known as pension carveouts or annuity buyouts

.20% of all private sector workers are covered by defined benefit plans and 43% of all private sector workers are covered by defined contributions plans. Life expectancy is age 74 for men and age 79 for women.

DIETRICH and several major insurance companies collaborate to design and develop institutional priced guaranteed income annuity options for participants of profit sharing/401(k) plans to replace lifetime income benefits no longer available through defined benefit pension plans.

Pension Risk Transfers become a primary financial solution for pension plan sponsors to transfer pension risk

Dietrich has acted as advisor to more than 3,000 plan sponsors utilizing group annuity contracts to guarantee pension benefits for more than 800,000 participants.