Ben Thomason has worked for retirement start-ups including iJoin and Vestwell, but he says his recent move to Allianz Life, an insurer with more than 100 years of history, fits the start-up ethos given the sector he works in – retirement income through defined contribution pension plans.
“If you talk to people here, you’ll hear that we see ourselves as a startup within a well-resourced organization,” Thomason says. “That’s what it feels like, and I feel very comfortable in that space.”
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Allianz hired Thomason this month to head its DC sales team for guaranteed income products, replacing Michal De Feo, who left the bank.
Thomason says the emerging market work on in-plan annuity options is similar to work in the target-date fund space, when people were defaulting into money market funds and stable value funds with no other options and the retirement industry was looking for a solution to the “inadequacy” of qualified default investment alternatives, Thomason said.
Now, he says, the industry is searching for answers for “Peak 65,” with more retirees than ever before trying to manage the drawdown of their assets.
“These are well-educated, thoughtful people, but they don’t have the means to develop a retirement strategy as a means of disinvestment,” he says. “We’re looking for ways to help people have a comfortable, less anxious retirement.”
Allianz entered the in-plan annuity market in 2022 with Allianz Lifetime Income+ Annuity for 401(k) plans, and in 2023, SS&C Technologies Holdings Inc. added the service to its DC Retirement Income platform along with other insurers to meet growing demand.
Thomason brings retirement startup experience to the role, having most recently led sales at iJoin, a financial planning, managed accounts and analytics provider founded in 2017. Prior to that, he worked at Vestwell Holdings, a digital 401(k) provider that was founded in 2016 and made waves in the retirement space, primarily focusing on the new and smaller plan sector.
Thomason first worked with Allianz at Bestwell, then began working at iJoin, which provides in-plan pensions to the insurance company’s network of recordkeepers. Thomason said his “intellectual interest” in the retirement income conundrum with Matt Gray, Allianz’s head of employer markets, led to regular communications and discussions that ultimately sparked his interest in joining Gray’s team.
“He’s an actuary by training, and we had many conversations about the concept of retirement income,” Thomason says.
Allianz is competing in a field that has become increasingly competitive in recent years. Insurers are teaming up with asset managers and record-keeping companies to offer annuity-like retirement options in their plans. Options range from letting participants choose from a menu of annuities to TDFs that automatically enroll them in annuities as they approach retirement. Meanwhile, both private annuity sales and the use of annuities to transfer pension risk have surged, partly due to rising interest rates.
Thomason believes there will be demand for the services offered by new employers as the industry becomes increasingly familiar with annuities as a solution to retirement income problems.
“We’re seeing interest from both sides,” he said. “You have ERISA advisors that plan sponsors rely on and plan sponsors looking for solutions that will benefit their participants.”
Still, Thomason sees the venture as still in its “early stages,” and said it will take time for the planned options to filter through what he calls the “grand mosaic of the D.C. market.”
“You have the plan sponsor, the advisor, the asset manager, the managed account provider, the recordkeeper, and all the technology in between,” he says. “All of that has to work in concert.”
It’s a complicated situation, but Thomason sees early signs of promise in his new job, with networks showing interest in the field.
“Part of what brought me here is the number of inquiries I’m getting from friends in the advisor community, the asset manager community and the technology community,” he says. “We’re getting close to a place where we need an iron-clad solution that requires awareness and education in each part of the mosaic.”
