Acknowledgments When I moved from the investment banking world into the pension fund and life insurance arena in 2000, I was fascinated by the long-term considerations that characterised the decision making approach but at the same time astonished by the techniques applied to arrive at certain valuations and related decisions. After a while, I became even more intrigued by the absence of clear agreements between pension fund participants at a juncture in time that proved there was little value in supposedly “acquired rights”. This triggered me and my colleagues in the early Cardano years (2000, 2001) to organise a seminar around the theme of embedded options in pension fund contracts and their relationship to shareholder and debt holder roles in pension funds. Thereafter, I wrote a few articles around the theme but the research soon diverted to the more hedging related aspects in long-term decision making. Until in 2005 Guus Boender and Jean Frijns suggested to turn some of my articles and presentations into a thesis, with the emphasis on the contractual aspects of embedded options in pension funds. We soon agreed that the shrinking role of the employer could be an interesting extension and so the adventure started. The relatively brief period in which I wrote the thesis entails the risk of little nuance in the findings. More deliberation will certainly take place after publication, but I made the assumption that the advantage of catching up with the momentum of a greying society and pension funds searching for new directions in structure and techniques will outweigh the lack of subtlety. I am very grateful to Jean and Guus for their full support for my preference to avoid a lengthy project. They ensured very swift feedback on the drafts, frequent meetings and active support with regard to completing the formalities of the thesis. Furthermore Jean’s very structured reviews and Guus’ continuous attempts to imagine what the consequences in practice would be for various pension fund structures rendered the thesis more balanced. Special thanks go to Peter Bernstein for his encouragement to put my various ideas and publications into a book to ensure wider circulation, which coincided with the discussions with Jean and Guus and gave me the final boost to start this thesis. I am also grateful to Keith Ambachtsheer, whose practical suggestions on pension redesign focussed me in my thinking (though he cannot be held responsible for any lack of feasibility in the proposed pension fund structures in this thesis). I would also like to thank the members of the reading committee for their elaborate feedback. They made it clear to me that the ideas discussed in this thesis can prove valuable in the transition to a completely new state of pension provisions, but also that some ripening is necessary, in conjunction with further research, before the ideas will materialise. I am much indebted to my colleagues at Cardano Risk Management. It will be dangerous to explicitly mention names, since non-negligible second and higher order effects of the first order (direct) support of colleagues exist. The fact that some colleagues supported me implied more work had to be assumed by other colleagues, not directly contributing to the content. Nevertheless, I will risk mentioning some colleagues who made the extra effort under the time pressure that all Dutch people love so much: Peter den Iseger, Sander de Groot, Jan Willem Engel and Huub van Capelleveen for research support, Bart Bos, Jeroen van der Hoek, Joeri Potters, Rob Janssen and Roel Menken for carefully reviewing the thesis. I am especially grateful to Marja Koolschijn. Confronted with the time pressure this project created, she managed the process around the thesis with external academics, internal colleagues, working students, publisher etc., reviewed the entire document several times and skilfully managed the limited time I had available at the office. Franka, Steven and Loes suffered even more than they usually are accustomed to. And they always hear the intention that this time at the end, no new challenges will prevent me from the quiet life I am so much looking for. The caring support from Franka has – once again – been indispensable in finishing this project. Finally I would like to thank three special people, Joop Wemelsfelder, Ruud van der Meer and Frans van Oorschot, for their support in the years preceding the writing of this thesis. Although they will not be able to discuss the thesis with me, they most certainly influenced it!