  The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we motivate the need for a new
type of stand-alone retirement income insurance product that would help
individuals protect against personal longevity risk and possible "retirement
ruin" in an economically efficient manner. We label this product a
ruin-contingent life annuity (RCLA), which we elaborate-on and explain with
various numerical examples and a basic pricing model. Second, we argue that
with the proper perspective a similar product actually exists, albeit not
available on a stand-alone basis. Namely, they are fused and embedded within
modern variable annuity (VA) policies with guaranteed living income benefit
(GLiB) riders. Indeed, the popularity of GLiB riders on VA policies point
towards the potential commercial success of such a stand-alone vehicle.
