Long Term Savings Performances: The 40 Year Track Record of Afer Funds

Long term savings can bring a sizable amount of wealth. The Afer life contract, an innovation introduced to the French market 40 years ago, highlights the power of such long term performances. This note describes the nature of the product and compares its financial performances over the 40 years. In a period particularly favorable to bonds, since yield went down from 15% to almost zero, we show that equities can do even better. The benefits of balanced funds and simple smoothing techniques recall that risk management is a major value added by the insurance industry to the savers.
JEL classification: G22; C58.
Keywords: Investments; Life insurance; Portfolio management; Performances; Asset allocation.