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Don’t Be a Statistic—Do It Today
Today marks the beginning of a month when the focus turns to a topic that most people don’t want to talk about or even think about: life insurance. But they do so at their own—and their family’s—peril. September is Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM). It’s a national campaign designed to draw attention to the fact [...]
People Have Too Much Life Insurance? The Facts Say Otherwise
How much life insurance do you need?
Most people have too much. This 5-step process can help pinpoint your needs.
These were the headlines for an article in The Chicago Tribune on Aug. 12, 2010. While the article itself is relatively reasonable, the headlines are misleading. Most people do not own too much life insurance. In fact, [...]
When Congress was debating health-care reform, prior to passage of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, there were what I considered inflated examples of individuals denied insurance, and claims not paid by insurers. These examples ignored the fact that historically insurers have paid 99.5% of all claims.
In many states, group plans, which are [...]
“Other Government Payments Affect Benefits: We are holding your Social Security benefits for November 2008 through April 2010. We may have to reduce these benefits if you received Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for this period. We will not reduce your past-due benefits if you did not get SSI benefits for those months … When we [...]
Here Is Your Chance for a Do-Over
How many times have you wished for a second chance? A do-over? Everyone has times like these: A barbed comment slips out of your mouth that you wish you could take back. A goofed up job interview that you just know you could ace given hindsight.
Then there are the more serious ones—events that we [...]
LIFE Is Here to Educate and Motivate
I recently read some statistics from a New York Life survey with Hispanics that were both encouraging as well as disturbing.
First of all, it showed that Hispanics are rethinking the way they view financial security for their loved ones: 77% of Hispanic adults agreed that the recession increased their desire to provide a financial [...]
Everywhere you turn there are advertisements for back-to-school sales, and the parents I know with school-aged kids are lamenting a summer gone too quickly as well as looking forward to getting back into the school routine. And the truth is, even though my own school years are well past me, I do miss the smell [...]
It Might Be Time to Take a Second Look at Permanent Insurance
Look at these statistics and tell me you don’t need financial advice. The U.S. government reported a $68 billion deficit for June 2010, the second consecutive year that there has been a deficit in June (i.e., June 2009 and June 2010). Before 2009, there had not been a deficit in June since 1991. In fact, [...]
The Truth Behind the Death-Benefit Payouts
Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and others have recently published articles saying how terrible it is that insurance companies are putting death benefits payable to beneficiaries into interest-bearing checking accounts as opposed to paying out the proceeds. This is a terrible misrepresentation of what actually happens and how this works.
Yes, for many companies the automatic [...]
Better Health Means Even Better Rates, But You Still Need to Compare
Hey, it looks like the underwriting departments of life insurance companies may be willing to look at modifying “rigid” guidelines for what they consider “good” risks to be. For example, I read that The Hartford has started paying more attention to a person’s capacity to exercise as a marker of good health and better longevity. [...]