Defined terms for the annuity market and lifetime income landscape.
Adjustment mechanism is the structural property of a claim that specifies what changes when conditions change and who controls the change, with four possible values: automatic-actuarial, fixed-contractual, discretionary, or manual-individual.
The ARVA (annually recalculated virtual annuity) is a withdrawal strategy in which annual income is recalculated each year using current account value, remaining life expectancy, and a chosen valuation rate, used in the Longevity Standard framework as a self-managed baseline.
An asset-backed claim is a lifetime income claim in which the income is paid by an insurer from the assets held in its general account, with the participant's right to income depending on the insurer's continued solvency and the performance of those assets.
A claim is an arrangement that delivers periodic income through a defined structure, characterized through four structural properties — risk sharing, adjustment mechanism, liquidity, and cost structure — that together specify what kind of arrangement it is.
The claim framework is the structural vocabulary of the Longevity Standard analytical system, consisting of four properties — risk sharing, adjustment mechanism, liquidity, and cost structure — that together characterize any lifetime income arrangement and complement the cost-of-income comparison.
