About this research paper
Living annuities present unique challenges in divorce and deceased estate matters, particularly where maintenance and accrual calculations are involved. The core difficulty lies in distinguishing the contractual right to income from any contingent inheritance value — and in understanding how different withdrawal strategies shift value between these components.
Presented at the 2025 Actuarial Society of South Africa convention, this peer-reviewed research introduces a structured valuation framework that makes these income–inheritance trade-offs visible. By guiding practitioners to consider intention and entitlement in context, the framework offers a clearer and more defensible basis for selecting the appropriate income right to value and supports more consistent outcomes across legal and fiduciary settings.
Although the focus is on living annuities, the underlying principles provide a useful lens for understanding other pre-retirement funds — and support more intentional retirement and advice strategies for professionals working with clients.
