Life Planning Strategies
Life planning strategies, with ideas about how to use life insurance and related products to help people and businesses get things done.
Stay in the VA fray
By David PortRecent sales figures don't lie -- variable annuities are a tougher sell today than they were a year or two ago (for obvious reasons.) Here's...
April 16, 2009
In the moneyUnfortunately, it's not the euphoria of a win in Vegas. Rather, it refers to the number of contract holders that have pulled the utilization trigger...
April 16, 2009
A rumination on why we fightWell, not fight really, but why we continue to make the case that capitalism and the free markets are not broken, and certainly not dead...
April 16, 2009
The ultimate in risk mitigationNot exactly a conventional insurance trend, but it's tough to deny their risk mitigation value. Wine was the un-conventional investment of choice in the last...
April 15, 2009
Financial advisors are losing faith in insurersFinancial advisors are losing faith in insurers. That's what a survey of Merrill Lynch advisors found, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the survey, conducted...
April 13, 2009
Immediate annuities sales rise on promise of lifetime income"Immediate" annuities are attracting more boomers drawn to lifetime income guaranteed by U.S. life insurance companies. Chris Blunt, executive vice president of retirement income security...
April 10, 2009
S&P: For life insurers, TARP aid won't immediately boost ratingsEven though the Treasury has expressed the possibility to expand federal aid to life insurers, Standard & Poor's Rating Services says not to expect higher...
April 09, 2009
A bunch of drunken 12-year-oldsI'd laugh if so much wasn't at stake. Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal a while back when all...