Thought for the day:

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office    ~Aesop~

If you will read no further:

Each month we seem to get more and more calls for SPIAs and index annuities.  We have been talking of the need for these guaranteed, predictable instruments in a retiree’s portfolio for several years.  It appears that people may actually be listening.  Either that or more people are getting nervous about when then next market drop will occur; or maybe they have figured out that having a secure predictable base income in a retirement portfolio just makes good sense.  In any event, Westland is definitely a great place to get competent access to the annuity marketplace.

For an interesting article in Forbes Magazine on the importance of having income annuities in the retirement portfolio, click here 

Thought for the week:

I received two calls last week from clients and advisors regarding life insurance policies that are “crashing”.  One client is a 92 year old lady whose advisor died a while back so she gets me.  Her policy is about to lapse and after spending many $thousands in premiums over many years, she must now make a decision about spending more premiums to keep it in force until she dies or needs long-term care.

I explained to her that if she pays the required premiums (even though they are quite steep) she can guarantee that someone will get the benefit, which will be measurably greater.  When we looked at the numbers she said, “That’s a lot of money to pay, but the return to my sons, or to me if I go into a nursing home, is quite good.  This is more like an investment than just higher insurance premiums.”  She says she can’t afford the premiums from cash flow, but she can move some money from some sucky bank accounts and will end up with a better return.  I was really excited because she totally gets it.

The other call was from an 83 year old insured who has been ignoring notices from the insurance company for several years and now has a lapse pending notice.  He wants the insurance but it is very costly. He hasn’t had the epiphany yet; so it remains to be seen if he will see it as a guaranteed investment or just “too much to pay for the insurance”.

The point here is that in neither of these cases did anyone in the past 20 years suggest, encourage, demand, cajole or in any way motivate these folks to have a life insurance review.  If they had, they could have foreseen this situation well in advance and made some adjustments that would have made it much easier now to keep the insurance in force which they both want to do.  Because everyone wants to keep their life insurance when they know they are terminal.  And the older we get, the more “terminal” we get.

Call Peggy (800)238-8144 and ask for Nancy or Randy and they can help you with providing policy review for your clients.  At the very least your clients should be made aware of the new provisions that allow them to access their death benefit for Chronic or Critical care without having to die first.

 

Things that make you say, “Oh wow!”

A recent study by Glasgow University in the U.K. found that bottled water, although it is substantially more expensive, is actually more likely to be contaminated than water from your faucet because it is less well-regulated.  Bottled water and tap water typically come from the same sources — natural springs, lakes, and aquifers. While public water supplies are tested for contaminants every day, makers of bottled water are only required to test for specific contaminants every week, month, or year.

And……………………

Recent health studies have linked caffeinated coffee to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, liver cancer, and even suicide.  So now the ideal long-term care planning strategy is to drink lots of coffee and (in case the studies are wrong) put a chunk of money into MoneyGuard and you don’t have to worry about needing nursing care.