Defined terms for the annuity market and lifetime income landscape.
A projected mortality table is a mortality table that combines a base table of observed mortality rates with an improvement scale of assumed future mortality decline, producing the mortality assumption that actuarial pricing and projections actually apply to forward-looking calculations.
The prudent expert standard is the ERISA fiduciary standard of care requiring a plan fiduciary to act with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence that a prudent person familiar with the relevant matters would use — a standard elevated above ordinary prudence to that of an expert in the field.
The prudent investor rule is the general trust-law standard of care that requires a trustee to invest and manage trust assets the way a prudent investor would, judged against the overall portfolio and its purposes rather than against any single holding in isolation.
Purchasing power risk is the risk that a fixed nominal income stream buys progressively fewer goods and services over time as general price levels rise, eroding the participant's ability to fund their real cost of living.
