Annuities didn’t quite take center stage during The Rolling Stones recent U.S. tour but, they certainly played a prominent role in more ways than one.
“We hit a nerve by talking about protective lifetime income and talking about income and retirement,” said Jean Statler, executive director of The Alliance for Lifetime Income, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit coalition of financial services companies that focuses on helping educate Americans about addressing the risk of outliving their savings.
The alliance, whose membership includes 24 financial services organizations, was the sole sponsor of the final U.S. dates of the rock band's European/North American concert tour, which began on Sept. 9, 2017, in Hamburg, Germany.
The 17-date U.S. tour began on June 21 in Soldier Field in Chicago and ended on August 31 in Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. Alliance members went along for the ride in an effort to educate people about protective lifetime income and annuities.
The alliance was connected to the band through Barry Stowe, the former CEO of Lansing, Mich.-based Jackson National Life Insurance. Statler said that Stowe had previously worked with The Rolling Stones on their 2016 Exhibitionism tour sponsorships. When the band asked if Jackson was interested in another sponsorship deal, Stowe connected the band with the Alliance, she said.
“The alignment was so perfect in terms of what we can learn from ... the Rolling Stones and the new retirement—people living life to their fullest and continuing doing what they love. ... Who does that better than the Rolling Stones?” she said.
The Rolling Stones are septuagenarians, with a combined age of 302. Drummer Charlie Watts is 78, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are 76, and Ronnie Wood is 72.
Concertgoers, many of whom ranged in age from 55 to 75, also were perfectly aligned with the subject matter, Statler said. “So it was more about the audience and the educational opportunity for the audience than it was about hanging around with The Rolling Stones,” she said.
She said the group had a truck in the exhibit area at each concert, where concertgoers were offered a virtual tour focused on the alliance's campaign theme: "You have a lot of risk in your life, but you don’t want to retire with those risks.” They also were able to use the alliance’s tool to calculate their Retirement Income Security Evaluation (RISE) scores. RISE measures how well an individual will be covered financially in retirement on a scale of zero to 850. Financial advisors also were present, Statler said.
Cyrus Bamji, communications director for the alliance, said annuities have always been the stepchild in terms of understanding how they fit in retirement plans, but that is changing. “Over the past 30 to 40 years in the financial planning industry, whether you are an advisor or another type of financial professional, the focus in retirement planning has shifted from what used to be pensions,” he said.