Protection
Articles for Our Clients on Protection
The articles in this section are to help you protect your current situations. One can't build Lasting Situations of Wealth™ without a foundation of protection that preserves your current situation. With Protection built into our financial planning process with clients, we help you have the freedom of knowing you’re prepared for the unexpected. But beyond that, you also have a powerful and adaptable strategy to assist you in planning for the changes you can foresee.
Each new milestone you approach brings new goals and new financial challenges. The articles in the Protection section of our library are to help you anticipate these issues, evolving your financial strategies to keep up with your life. So you have the strong foundation you need to continue moving forward.
|
September 2, 2011
Working from a list that appeared in a Saturday, July 2, 2011, Wall Street Journal article, here are essential personal and financial documents that should be readily accessible by you or your heirs in an eldercare situation. Your personal circumstances might not require having every item listed here, but the categories reflect the range of issues relevant to caring for an aging parent....
|
September 2, 2011
Want to forecast the future? Look for the demographics. They are huge indicators of long-term trends, and once in place, they tend to change very slowly. In developed countries, a pre-dominant demographic trend is the combination of falling birthrates and aging populations. These two trends are already in place, and the impact of these factors is inexorably working to change social and financial...
|
|
July 5, 2011
Because economics is a field that attempts to explain and quantify so many issues and behaviors, reaching consensus on a particular issue can take a long time, and by a long time, we mean centuries. So when die-hard opponents finally come to agreement on a topic, it’s almost a surprise. Here’s the startling consensus: Social Security, as presently formatted, is unsustainable.
The idea that Social...
|
July 5, 2011
During the historical period that encompassed the formation of the United States, women had far fewer rights than men. In the 17th century in colonial America, women could not vote or hold public office, and could not control property except under special circumstances. Before they married, a woman’s economic affairs were directed by her father, and after marriage, her husband made all the major...
|
|
May 7, 2011
Life Insurance in Estate Planning
A life insurance policy is often a vital instrument in an estate plan, because a life insurance benefit delivers a specific amount of cash upon the death of the insured. For the beneficiaries of an estate, life insurance can provide:
• ongoing income for living expenses,• educational funding, • liquidity...
|
March 3, 2011
The French essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) sagely observed: “Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.” Although Montaigne’s comments are more than four centuries old, they still apply today – especially when the topic is cash value life insurance.
In the United States, the first forms of cash value life insurance appeared around the time of the American Civil War....
|
|
February 5, 2011
Another socio-economic impact of increased longevity is the growing occurrence of children and/or other family members serving as care-givers for aging parents and relatives. The latest statistics from a 2010 report by the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) reported that 43.5 million Americans in 2009 were looking after a friend or relative over the age of 50, which represented a 28% increase...
|
January 7, 2011
A contrarian is someone who believes the herd is usually wrong: the herd is usually running just behind the curve, the herd buys high and sells low, and the herd is always chasing the next big thing, but never catching it. For contrarians, their best bet is to figure out how to zig when everyone else is zagging, and vice versa. Intelligent contrarians often make very profitable financial...
|
|
November 5, 2010
If you want to ensure a steady stream of income in retirement, what’s the best approach? Any assessment of meeting the challenge of retirement income inevitably reduces to two options: group plans or individual contracts.
Social Security, Employer Pensions, Individual Annuities
Most developed nations have established some version of a national retirement income program funded by taxes; in...
|
September 5, 2010
Suppose you have just secured your first “adult” job, or just gotten married, or just decided to put down your Xbox and get serious about your financial affairs. Where do you start?
Well, it depends on where you are. If you have three student loans, a maxed-out credit card and a minimum-wage part-time job, the steps are different than someone who has already staggered into steady employment, a...
|
