Most retirement plans have not incorporated the longevity risk. Mortality risk is a risk multiplier that acerbates other retirement risks. Without mitigating mortality risk, many middle class retirees could exhaust their 401(k)s and be left with Social Security and a little equity in their homes. The possibility is based on the sequence of returns, the math principle of withdrawing from your retirement plan in down markets. The sequence of returns during that period of the Great Recession left some retirees reeling with cash shortages and a future some are still recovering from. Living longer may affect the quality of life because medical bills and long term care costs will absorb discretionary dollars. 70% of seniors today use some long-term care assistance. Living longer will only compound the problem and the expense. If the baby boomer generation gets tight with their money, it could cause a rippling affect on the economy as spending grinds to a halt. Inflation is a real and ever present danger to seniors. It doesn’t matter what the declared rate of the CPI is or any other inflation indicator, if it doesn’t include the commodities of life; it’s a worthless gauge. The purchasing power of your retirement   Read more…

The Guinness Book of World Records establishes an achievement based on documentation. Their documentation is rooted in a scientific process of collecting of data. Currently, Guinness has declared Jeanne Calment as the oldest person to ever live in modern times. But an Indonesian man named Mbah Gotho has Indonesian documentation that states he died at 146 years old. But that documentation is not acceptable to Guinness, so when and until creditable evidence emerges Jeanne is the longevity queen. But for billions of Christians around the world Methuselah has the record for the oldest living human of all time at 969 years old and its documentation is the Bible and more specifically the book of Genesis. Guinness doesn’t recognize Genesis, so Jeanne is still the poster child of human longevity and in comparison to Methuselah she was just a child at 122 years old. The living and reigning champion of the geriatric set is Jamaica’s Violet Brown at 117 years old. That makes her a centenarian teenager! But recently America’s “Old Suzanna” Jones died at 116 years old and she was not only a centenarian teenager, she was a tri-centurion born in 1899. These may be outliers and anomalies in the   Read more…

The economic leverage of life insurance and, in most cases, its tax-free transfer aspect, delivers a financial to beneficiaries like no other product line or planning strategy. Whether indemnifying a single life or two lives, life insurance can pay estate-transfer taxes and costs as well as create an estate with pennies on the dollar. Life insurance is the law of large numbers working for you. Passing an inheritance to family, friends or a beloved charity can financially position them to accomplish goals even when you’re gone. Protecting partners in a business arrangement can add significant solace to the company and fund succession plans in case of the demise of a partner. For domestic planning survivorship, life insurance is ideal, especially if both policy insureds are healthy, but even when they’re not, the leverage or bang for the buck generally remains the economic way to go. The transfer of family assets may incur taxes at the state and federal levels as well as transition costs. With new and improved mortality, survivorship life insurance can also create legacies not just for the succeeding generation, but also for two additional generations. This new trend is already emerging in estate planning where children, grandchildren   Read more…

Undergoing a risk-tolerance test can help you build a financial profile that can serve you in the decision-making process. If the results of your test determine you’re a conservative saver or investor, make sure your 401(k) or IRA reflects your psychonomic characteristic of a conservative. Often a risk-tolerance test will result in a conservative profile, while your retirement plan has beta risk exposure unsuitable for you. Just as there are thousands of mutual funds and ETFs, there are thousands of cash-value life insurance policies. All financial products have current expense loads and differing historical performance. In there, the product inventory of participating whole life and current interest rate universal life, the consumer contenders are limited to a dozen insurance companies. Here are the basics on why you may want to look into these products. Participating Whole Life Insurance can be optimized to generate more than 5 percent with its base policy and no other riders. But a minimized base policy with a “paid-up additions rider” for excess contributions can generate 5.5 percent. Keep in mind the best in this category could be returning dividends (a combination of portfolio returns and unused premiums) north of those numbers. Dividends are not guaranteed,   Read more…