Strong increases in sales of annuities in the earlier parts of 2011 slowed over the course of the year, but still yielded an 8 percent growth over the previous year, according to data released Wednesday by LIMRA.

2011 served to be a banner year for ING's U.S. Retirement division, as several major corporate defined contribution plan partners renewed and brought total assets under management to more than $24 billion.

Chalk one up for American Airlines' employees. And strike one down for the ongoing decay of defined benefit plans and an era of pension protection.

American Airlines' parent company told its employees Wednesday that it does not plan to end its pension plans as part of its bankruptcy restructuring, but instead hopes to freeze them.

Low interest rates have led firms such as Boeing to push Congress to reconsider the amount of money companies are required to feed into their pension funds.

Despite an upsurge in employer contributions to their pension plans, the long-running economic malaise continues to undermine those accounts, in the worst way since 2008.

ASPPA's newest volley against proposed changes to 401(k) contribution tax structures suggests defined contribution plans are the savior of lower-income workers.

Bank of America has informed its employees that it will be freezing its existing pension plans in July and swapping in increases to company 401(k) plans instead, CNNMoney reports.