Posts Tagged ‘annuities’
Record On Wall Street Spurs Talk Of Retirement Planning
Wall Street's recent record-breaking performance has prompted financial planners to urge people saving for retirement to review their assets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at an all-time high, beating the record it set in October 2007, before the financial crisis. The Dow ended the day up 126 points 14,253.77, beating its previous [...]
Never Too Late to do Retirement Planning
Some of the assumptions we've made for generations about the best way to save and plan for retirement may no longer be true. The decline in housing and stock prices beginning with the 2008 crash, and a decline in 401(k) matches from employers, has raised the proportion of working households at risk of having too little to retire on just over half, [...]
Cigna Paying Berkshire $2.2 Billion to Take Annuity
Cigna Corp. (CI) struck a deal with Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKA, BRKB) that will transfer up to $4 billion in obligations pegged to once-troublesome annuity operations Cigna began winding down more than a decade ago. Despite being in wind-down mode, the businesses can still pop up as messy distractions in Cigna's financial [...]
New Annuity Guarantees Raise Questions
The latest products from insurers are less expensive. But regulators—and consumers—remain wary. With millions of baby boomers headed to retirement without old-fashioned pension plans as safety nets, here is a product that would seem to have big appeal: a guarantee of lifetime income from a portfolio of ordinary mutual funds—however long the [...]
Solving the Riddle of the Immediate Annuity
Only about 3% of insurance policies sold are immediate or income annuities. Policyholders often can’t get access to cash once they sign the annuity contract. Plus, if they die before their principal is exhausted, any money left, unless they make other arrangements, generally goes to the insurance company. Even if the immediate annuity permits [...]
Non-Qualified Annuities Regain Favor
After six months of negative cash flows, non-qualified annuities turned positive in the third quarter. Such annuities also gained market share, according to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. Nevertheless, flows into qualified annuities – those purchased for company retirement plans and IRAs – continued to far exceed flows into [...]
Consumers Demand Indexed Annuities
The insurance industry’s efforts to combat the negative press on indexed annuities are becoming successful. Our hard work of publishing numerous factual articles on these products is paying off! Finally, consumers have some small way to research indexed annuities on their own. They have access to credible and reliable information, which allows [...]
Some Advisers Not Confident on their Annuity Know-How
Despite their clients' interest in guaranteed income, many advisers still hesitate to recommend annuities. Much of that uncertainty appears to be tied to lack of understanding and experience with the insurance products, according to research from Morningstar Inc. The firm polled 106 advisers from a variety of backgrounds, including independent [...]
Internet Searching for Insurance, Annuities Up More Than 60% in Six Years
The number of individuals who used the Internet to research individual insurance or annuity products rose more than 60% in the past six years. Sixty-one percent of consumers who researched individual insurance or annuity products did so online, compared to 38% who looked online in 2006. Sixty-nine percent of consumers sought information from [...]
“New School” Retirement Planning for Today’s Baby Boomers
There's a new book e-book on the market, Bifurcated Retirement, The New Approach for Today's Baby Boomers. This book examines the Baby Boomers' unique retirement planning challenges regarding savings, investments, inflation, longevity, and long-term care needs, and delivers a two-stage retirement program not found in the traditional wealth [...]
