As retirement plans go 401k plans have been a powerful resource for employees to save money for after they’ve stopped earning an income.  The employee can contribute pre-tax money out of there paycheck and in many cases the employer will contribute up to a certain level.   However, many boomers have realized two very big [...]

Over the recent recession, several insurance carriers saw revenues drastically drop due in large part to their variable annuity business that was inforce.  As the underlying assets that made up the values of the annuities saw huge declines in the stock market during the crash, the guarantees that many of the products made put the [...]

Every investor is searching for that silver bullet investment.  No risk, make 20% a year, sell it tomorrow with zero tax implications.  But as we all know, that does not exist.  The same is true for retirement planning.  In a perfect world, we would all be handed a retirement plan with our Social Security card [...]

According to a recent annual report from PriceMetrix, a Toronto-based research, consulting and software solutions firm, the average assets under management for financial advisors in North America reached an all-time high of $81 million last year.  That’s an increase of 9% from the $74 million per advisor average at the end of 2011.  The report [...]

Federal Reserve data shows that U.S. investors have more money invested in IRAs than they do in 401(k) plans.  In their most recent data for 2011, investors collectively held $4.87 trillion in IRA accounts compared to $3.88 trillion in defined contribution plans like 401(k)s.  This is in spite of the fact that the maximum annual [...]

In Atlanta, March through April is known as “Festival Season.”  Apparently, in the Annuity world, March through April is known as “Product Season” as all of the major carriers begin rolling out their new updated product series.  Just recently, AVIVA and ING came out with new products. Not to be outdone, North American has quietly [...]

Even though an overwhelming majority of financial advisors are over the age of 50, most of these retirement professionals continue to put off planning for their own retirement.  This is according to a new survey conducted by SEI.  The survey, which polled 100 financial advisors, showed that about 68% of participants had no formal succession [...]

We watched a very eye-opening video today on Yahoo’s Daily Ticker where they interviewed another one of the handful of economists that was warning about the 2008/2009 financial collapse many years in advance.  This time, he is calling for another huge U.S. stock market collapse in the very near future.  But it is for a [...]

Steve Santiago at BankRate.com writes an interesting article on ways to stretch out your retirement income.  These are 7 great reasons why your client’s should have a guaranteed vehicle in place to provide an income stream you can never outlive.  Annuities with lifetime income benefits are great to layer on top of client’s Social Security payments! [...]