Blogs By Financial Advisors

A CD is available from your bank and pays you a specific interest rate over a certain number of years. A Fixed Annuity is a contract with an insurance company and it too pays a specific interest rate over a certain number of years. For the purposes of direct comparison our example will deposit a single lump sum of $50,000 into both a Fixed Annuity and a bank CD, for a 5 year period, with both the Annuity and the CD paying an annual 3% interest rate.

An important difference between the two is that in the Annuity your money grows on a tax-deferred basis. This means that you have control over when you pay taxes on the interest you...

This is always a great question to answer.

If your family is well off and has plenty of assets, no debt, college is funded and the retirement is taken care of, your answer is "Not Much!" or perhaps "None"!

Of course, none of my clients starting out have large funds to draw off of or an inheritence waiting for them (or their kids, if they are not around) so life insurance is a reasonable and a very wise decision.

A standard rule of thumb is TEN to FIFTEEN times your annual income.

When you buy insurance, you are trying to protect yourself, or heirs, against a loss that would be too hard to recover from. In the...

In today's volatile, unpredictable stock market environment, it is very difficult to predict the future value of a retirement plan.

As an example a 45 year old client contributing $10,000 per year to a 401K growing at 6% growth would accumulate to $423,923 at age 67. Using a 6% growth rate during distribution the client would receive $27,834 per year to age 100.

401K RESCUE PROGRAM

45 year old client contributes $10,000 per year to IUL policy at 8.6% to age 67 would receive $57,012 per year TAX FREE to age 100. That is a total payout of $1,938,408

401K programs can no longer be counted on by clients looking...

How Much Life Insurance Do You Really Need?

Some people equate life insurance with tragedy and death. In truth, life insurance is for the living. Without it, the sudden demise of a key breadwinner could leave a family stranded without the resources to maintain their lifestyle - or even retain their home.

Not so long ago, experts recommended that families carry a life insurance policy with a death benefit of between five and seven times their annual household income. Today, however, in light of rising house prices in many parts of the country and spiraling college costs, most advisors now recommend eight to 10 times income...

Many times our clients will want to know who is most popular company that offers fixed index annuities. Of course we are glad to share that information. An independent third party report from annuityspecs.com Indexed Sales & Market Report 1st Quarter, 2010 shows that there were 6.8 billion dollars of index annuities purchased in 3 months from January-March of 2010.

Of that, the leading company was Allianz Life of North American. They offer the most often purchased fixed index annuity in the nation. Behind Allianz was AVIVA and American Equity. Almost half, 3.3 billion or 48% of the fixed index annuities sold were purchase...

Ran across a situation today and thought I would share this informaiton. An IRA in an indvidual retirement arrangement and can only be titled in an annuity with owners name. Some financial institutions will also list the owner for the "IRA as XYZ institution for the benefit of Your Name"

Many clients are using revocable living trusts these days and want the trust to own their annuity. Be careful in planning because you cannot have the IRA Annuity with trust listed as the owner. You can however have a non-qualified annuity owned by a trust.

If you haven't done any asset protection planning, your wealth is vulnerable to potential future creditors and, should the worst happen, you could lose everything.

Lawsuits, taxes, accidents, and other financial risks are facts of everyday life. And though you'd like to believe that you're safe, misfortune can befall even the most careful person. What can you do? First, identify your potential loss exposure, then implement strategies that are designed to help reduce that exposure without compromising your other estate and financial planning objectives.

First, a word about fraudulent transfers:...

Long term care is the type of care you may need if you have a prolonged physical illness, disability or severe cognitive impairment (such as Alzheimer’s disease) that keeps you from living independently.

Here are some very important things to consider when meeting with your financial advisor and planning you long term care:

• Two-thirds of people over age 65 will need long term care in their lifetime.
• How will you pay for it. With median costs ranging from $38,220 to $75,190 per year depending on the type of care needed, finding a way to pay for long term care can be a challenge for many people.
• ...