Financial

More and more people are now realizing that the best financial advice is to have a sound financial and estate plan that takes care of your funeral services, funeral costs and funeral expenses ahead of time. Pre-Need Planning is one of the most common ways to accomplish this type of planning. A Pre-Need Plan gives your clients the ability to …

By Michael Melia, January 20, 2014 HARTFORD, Conn. — Worried about the groom getting cold feet? There’s an insurance policy for that. With the cost of the average American wedding reaching about $26,000, insurers have been selling a growing number of policies to protect against losses from extreme weather, illness and, in one firm’s case, even a sudden change of …

By Zachary Tracer, January 9, 2014 U.S. life insurers will use cash for acquisitions rather than share repurchases after buybacks helped drive a rally last year, Deloitte LLP said in its 2014 industry outlook. “Stock buybacks, which were an important part of the capital allocation story for 2013, may not be quite as appealing,” Boris Lukan, a principal at Deloitte, …

By Alexandria Baca, January 9, 2014 American Financial Group Inc. (AFG), the insurer run by Cincinnati’s Lindner family, agreed to buy Summit Holdings Southeast Inc. from Liberty Mutual Group Inc. for about $250 million to build its workers’ compensation business. The total investment in Summit will be about $400 million, including a capital contribution at the completion of the all-cash …

As financial advisors, we are required to take exams, acquire licenses, and perform continuing education with the primary objective of helping our clients protect wealth, save wealth, and grow wealth. However, the harsh reality is that the large majority of our industry tends to focus mostly on the growth component, and often overlooks the protection component. It can be very …

Nobody likes talking about the fact that, some day, they will die. However, not only is death a guaranteed outcome, but it often occurs at an unexpected time much sooner than anyone anticipates. So, given the fact that death is inevitable, financial advisors simply cannot overlook an overall financial or retirement plan. When my family suffered the loss of a …

Amid predicted tax hikes and anticipated market volatility, with 98 percent of high-net-worth households and 85 percent of all households making annual charitable contributions, charitable planning remains a largely untapped opportunity for financial advisors. Recent studies show that only half of all advisors are proactively offering charitable planning advice. Yet, those who do offer this advice consider it an important …

I am sorry to report that there is no typo in the title above. That is a ’9′ followed immediately by a ’0′. As in ninety percent. As in unprecedented. As in global devastation of capital and equity. So, you are probably wondering if this is an arbitrary number that I used to garner attention. Unfortunately, it is not. In …

Our modern day methods of communication value fast, short, and information-rich conversations. With the rise of social media and texting as key ways to communicate information, conversations seem to be abbreviated. But, it hasn’t always been this way. For thousands of years, long before we had mobile devices or even the printed page, communicators have relied on one key tool …

Although I have written lots of articles about the features and benefits of End of Life Planning, this article is focused on helping financial professionals learn how to have “the conversation” regarding End of Life Planning. Having “The Conversation” You may have heard this saying: by failing to plan, you are planning to fail. However, in our industry, there are …