Articles

Educate yourself on a variety of financial topics. These articles answer the questions clients ask most often.

Estates & Trusts

• How Can a Living Trust Help Me Control My Estate?

  Living trusts enable you to control the distribution of your estate, and certain trusts may enable you to reduce or avoid many of the taxes and fees that will be impos…

• What Are the Pitfalls of Probate?

  Have you ever wondered what will happen to your estate after you die? How long will it take for your loved ones to receive the estate you’ve left them? Will each…

• How Can I Benefit from a Charitable Remainder Trust?

Retirement

• What Is a SIMPLE?

• What Is an IRA Rollover?

  If you leave a job or retire, you might want to transfer the money you’ve invested in one or more employer-sponsored retirement plans to an individual retirement…

• Why Do People Buy Annuities?

  Annuities are insurance-based financial vehicles that can provide many benefits sought by retirement-minded investors. There are a number of reason…

• What Are Annuity Living Benefits?

  Many variable annuity contracts offer “living benefit” guarantees. For an additional cost, the contract holder may be able to purchase guarantees regardles…

• How Much Do I Need to Save?

  Many Americans realize the importance of saving for retirement, but knowing exactly how much they need to save is another issue altogether. With all the information av…

• What Does the Changing Pension Landscape Mean for Retirement?

  John F. Kennedy once said, “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” This is certainly tr…

• What Is a 1035 Exchange?

  Named after Section 1035 of the Internal Revenue Code, a 1035 exchange allows life insurance policy owners (and annuity contract owners) to exchange an old policy (or…

• Unforgettable Birthdays

  Birthdays may seem less important as you grow older. They may not offer the impact of watershed moments such as getting a driver’s license at 16 and voting at 18…

• Will Social Security Retire Before You Do?

  People have traditionally seen Social Security benefits as the foundation of their retirement planning programs. The Social Security contributions deducted from worker…

• How Can I Estimate My Future Social Security Benefits?

  Estimating your future Social Security benefits used to be a difficult task, but not any longer. For an estimate of your projected benefits, go to www.ssa.gov/estimato…

• What Are My Retirement Plan Distribution Options?

  When it comes to receiving the fruits of your labor — the money accumulated in your employer-sponsored retirement plan — you are faced with a few broad opt…

• What Is a Traditional IRA?

  Traditional individual retirement accounts (IRAs) can be a good way to save for retirement. If you do not participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan or would…

• What Is a 401(k) Plan?

  A 401(k) plan is a self-directed, qualified retirement plan established by an employer to provide future retirement benefits for employees. Employee contributions are…

• Save Now or Save Later?

  Most people have good intentions about saving for retirement. But few know when they should start and how much they should save.

• What Is a Roth IRA?

  Roth IRAs are tax-favored financial vehicles that enable investors to save money for retirement. They differ from traditional IRAs in that taxpayers cannot deduct cont…

Tax Planning

• What Is the Gift Tax?

  The federal gift tax applies to gifts of property or money while the donor is living. The federal estate tax, on the other hand, applies to property conveyed to others…

• How Much Money Can I Put Into My IRA or Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plan?

  IRAs and employer-sponsored retirement plans are subject to annual contribution limits set by the federal government. The limits are adjusted periodically to comp…

• What Is a Required Minimum Distribution?

  A required minimum distribution (RMD) is the annual amount that generally must be withdrawn from a traditional IRA or a qualified retirement plan (such as a 401(k), 40…

• When Must Taxes Be Paid on IRA and Employer-Sponsored Retirement Funds?

  Traditional IRAs and most employer-sponsored retirement plans are tax-deferred accounts, which means they are typically funded with pre-tax or tax-deductible dollars….

• How Can I Benefit from Tax-Advantaged Investments?

  For many people, tax-advantaged investing is an excellent way to reduce their income tax liability. And while many of the traditional tax-advantaged strategies have be…

• What Tax Deductions Are Still Available to Me?

  Tax reform measures are enacted frequently by Congress, which makes it hard for U.S. taxpayers to know which deductions are currently available to help lower their tax…

• What Tax-Advantaged Alternatives Are Available?

  A strong savings program is essential for any sound financial strategy.

• What Is the Most Tax-Efficient Way to Take a Distribution From a Retirement Plan

  If you receive a distribution from a qualified retirement plan such as a 401(k), you need to consider whether to pay taxes now or to roll over the account to another t…

• How Can I Keep More of My Mutual Fund Profits?

  Provisions in the tax code allow you to pay lower capital gains taxes on the sale of assets held more than one year. Short-term gains — those resulting from the…

• How Can I Upgrade My Insurance — Tax-Free?

  Responding to the changing needs of consumers, the life insurance industry has developed some alternatives that go much further in satisfying a variety of financial ne…

Investing

• What Are Dividends?

  When considering the profit they make on stocks, many investors assess the gains they have obtained based on the appreciation of the stock on the open market or the ga…

• What Is an Exchange-Traded Fund?

  Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are just one of the many types of investment funds available, but they have some qualities that are unique and set them apart from other v…

• How Are Growth and Value Stocks Different?

  Investors are often confused about the differences between growth stocks and value stocks. The main way in which they differ is not in how they are bought and sold, no…

• How Are Mutual Funds Taxed?

  Many people have heard the Benjamin Franklin quote, “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Mutual fund taxes can be onerous. However, if y…

• What Is Stock?

  Most people know something about the stock market, but many investors who see stock as a way to get rich quick might not understand exactly what stock is and how it wo…

• What Is Diversification?

• What Types of Bonds Are Available?

  Bonds are issued by federal, state, and local governments; agencies of the U.S. government; and corporations. There are three basic types of bonds: U.S. Treasury, muni…

• What Is a Bond?

• What Is a Stock Index?

  In 1884, Charles Henry Dow averaged the closing prices of 11 stocks he considered representative of the strength of the U.S. economy in a paper that preceded The Wall…

• How Do Mutual Funds and Stocks Differ?

  Whether you’re a first-time stock investor or a seasoned veteran, you should understand what differentiates single stock investments from mutual fund investing….

• What Is a Mutual Fund?

  Since the creation of the first modern-day mutual fund, the Massachusetts Investors Trust, in 1924, there has been a steady growth of mutual funds. Today there are aro…

• What Is a Mutual Fund Load?

  Mutual fund transactions can be complicated, especially with the fees and expenses that accompany the process. It’s important to understand mutual fund loads, or…

• What Is an Annuity?

  An annuity is a contract with an insurance company that is funded by the purchaser and designed to generate an income stream in retirement. It is a flexible financial…

• What Is the Difference Between a Fixed Annuity and a Variable Annuity?

  An annuity is a contract with an insurance company in which you make one or more payments in exchange for a future income stream in retirement. The funds in an annuity…

• What Investment Risks Should I Know About?

  Taken by itself, the word "risk" sounds negative. But broken down into what it really stands for in terms of investing, it begins to be a little more managea…

• What Stock and Bond Investing Alternatives Do I Have?

• What Is Dollar-Cost Averaging?

  Every investor dreams of buying into the market at a low point, just before it hits an upswing, and garnering a large profit from selling at the market’s peak. B…

Cash Management

• What Are Some Tips for Managing My Money?

• How Long Will It Take to Double My Money?

  Before making any investment decision, one of the key elements you face is working out the real rate of return on your investment.

• How Do Money Market Mutual Funds Work?

  Just like individuals, the government, corporations, and banks often need to borrow money for a short time to make ends meet. Unlike most individuals, however, the sca…

• How Can I Better Manage My Short-Term Cash?

• What Advantages Does a Biweekly Mortgage Offer?

• What About Financial Aid for College?

  Financial aid for college consists of loans, grants, scholarships, and work study. Grants and scholarships are worth searching for because they don't have to be pa…

• How Does Inflation Affect Me?

Risk Management

• Why Purchase Life Insurance?

  We’ve all heard about the importance of having life insurance, but is it really necessary? Usually, the answer is “yes,” but it depends on your speci…

• Why Are Annuities Considered an Insurance Product?

  Annuities are financial vehicles that can be sold only by insurance companies. Basically, an annuity is a contract between you and an insurance company, which promises…

• What Is Term Life Insurance?

  Term life insurance is “pure” insurance. It offers protection only for a specific period of time. If you die within the time period defined in the policy,…

• What Is Whole Life Insurance?

  Most people are familiar with whole life insurance. For many years, whole life policies were the predominant type of life insurance sold in America.

• What Is Universal Life Insurance?

  Universal life insurance was developed in the late 1970s to overcome some of the disadvantages associated with term and whole life insurance. As with other types of li…

• What Is Variable Life Insurance?

  The insurance industry has introduced different types of insurance to meet consumer needs. For example, universal life insurance was created to provide a solution for…

• How Can I Maximize My Insurance Benefits?

  Understanding the threat of estate taxes on your life insurance proceeds is the first step in protecting these funds from unnecessary taxation. The next steps are dete…

• How Can I Insure My Future?

  Long ago, people realized that there is strength in numbers. For hundreds of years, we have been joining forces against all kinds of calamities — including finan…

• Do I Need Disability Income Insurance?

  Although most of us are aware of the need for health insurance coverage when determining our risk management needs, many of us fail to consider the possibility that we…

• Am I Prepared for Long-Term Care Expenses?

  In general, Americans are not sufficiently prepared to pay for long-term care. Many of them go through their lives simply hoping that they won’t ever need it. Un…

• What Does Medicare Cover?

  Medicare is the federal health insurance program for persons age 65 and older as well as certain disabled individuals. In 1965, Medicare was enacted to provide a &ldqu…