Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
December 18, 2012 -- Long term care insurance is one of the more difficult products in the insurance world. Unlike most insurance products, the decision to buy it or not is not clear cut. While it's easy to see why you need insurance on your car, home, or health - justifying long term care insurance is a a bit tricky. According to some reports, only 10% of people over age 60 have long term care insurance.
The market has not been kind to providers of long term care insurance. Some, including Prudential and MetLife, have stopped selling new policies in recent years, while others have had to ask for rate increases of over 40%. Life insurers sell some "flexible" life policies that provide a cash benefit before death as a kind of long term care hybrid. Recently we've seen some helpful articles on long term care insurance (see end of article). Here is a brief primer; we recommend the references to get a fuller understanding.
Long term care insurance provides
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Published on December 18, 2012
Comments 35
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 9, 2012 -- Our search for the towns that offer the best amenities to retirees has turned up some fascinating possibilities. One really nice thing we learned right away is that there are many communities that offer impressive amenities. Some towns are great for one type of amenity, such as golf, tennis, or culture. Others are more balanced, offering an array of facilities and opportunities.
This is Part 2 of our series on Amenities. The first came out 2 weeks ago, ("10 Best Amenities that Make for a Best Place to Retire"). Many thanks to the readers who provided comments and suggestions to that post.
It would be highly subjective and a bit reckless
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Published on December 9, 2012
Comments 6
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
December 8, 2012 -- Researchers at DePaul University and the Rush University Medical Center think they have found the underlying reason for an alarming rise in fraud committed against our rapidly aging baby boom generation. The explanation often arises from “that combination of not knowing but thinking you know", according to Keith Gamble, an assistant finance professor in DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business. In other words, overestimating what you think
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Published on December 8, 2012
Comments 3
Category: Active adult communities
December 4, 2012 - You can't beat it when your biggest dream comes true. When we started Topretirements.com 6 years ago we imagined this site would be a place where members would share their knowledge and experiences about the places they know and visit. So when we read Carole's amazing post this morning in the Comments section of the "Tell Us Where You Are Going to Retire - And Why" Blog article, we knew our dream has been realized. Carole has shared a newsy, factual, and interesting report on her travels about the communities she and her husband are visiting in South Florida. She's not only provided many useful facts and figures, but she also tells us her impressions, which can be so valuable.
We've reprinted some of her posts in this article not only because they are so good, but because we want more people to see them. Although the post to which she responded now has a stunning 557 comments, the only people likely to see her comments are our Daily Digest subscribers, since the original post dates way back to February. In the interest of geographic
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Published on December 4, 2012
Comments 4
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
December 4, 2012 - You've probably seen the ads for reverse mortgages- "Use the cash in your home to solve your retirement money problems". They sound simple enough - instead of you sending money each month to your mortage company, they send you a check! At the end of a specified period, after you either sell your home or have joined the big Kahuna in the sky, the payments are finished and the mortgage company gets paid back.
Unfortunately, as the New York Times recently reported in "Reverse Mortgages Costing Some Seniors Their Homes", it's not always that simple. Most companies offering reverse mortgages are legitimate and trustworthy, but as smaller companies with questionable ethics enter the market, there is also a lot of high pressure salesmanship and hype. The combination often results in unwary and poorly qualified
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Published on December 3, 2012
Comments 9
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
November 27, 2012 -- There are plenty of the Best Places to Retire lists (including the ones we publish) for this or that. But what does make a town a great place to retire? Weather, location, taxes - those are some of the essential factors. But just as key are the amenities that a town offers to its residents. If done right, even a town with a crummy location or climate can make itself attractive to retirees. This article launches a two part series on what the most innovative and forward-thinking towns are doing to make themselves more attractive to baby boomers. This installment lists our Top 10 Municipal Retirement Amenities; Part 2 provides our list of
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Published on November 27, 2012
Comments 47
Category: Retirement Real Estate
November 20, 2012 -- If Hurricane Sandy had some tiny silver lining amidst the tragedy it wreaked in the Caribbean, New Jersey, New York, and elsewhere, it is its lessons on preparedness. Those lessons could be very relevant to you if you are considering buying a retirement home in the next few years.
Infrastructure experts have long warned state and local officials as well as home owners about serious problems that could come with coastal flooding. Yet electrical and communications equipment left at ground level flooded, along with subway and car tunnels. Homes in flood zones were destroyed, above ground power lines were downed, roads washed out. The resulting human suffering is beyond
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Published on November 20, 2012
Comments 2
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Nov 20, 2012 -- New research suggests that the traditional rule of thumb for how much you can safely take out of your retirement funds, 4% per year, is not the ideal tool for the job. Originally popularized by Bill Bengen in 1994, it was at least partially based on the assumption that traditional stocks and other investments would return 6% or more over the long haul. As reported by Robert Powell at WSJ MarketWatch in "Retirement Income: What's Wrong with the 4% Rule" and the Center for Retirement Research in "Can Retirees Base Wealth Withdrawals on the IRS’ Required Minimum Distributions?", several exciting new theories challenge
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Published on November 20, 2012
Comments 10
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
November 14, 2012 -- As we baby boomers age there is a good chance that we might inherit an IRA from a parent, spouse, or sibling. Likewise your spouse and/or heirs will probably inherit yours when you go to the pearly gates. The rules governing inherited IRAs can be complicated, so it is important that you understand the basics that apply so you can make the best decisions. Here are the major issues to consider.
Transferring inherited IRA assets
If you inherit a traditional or Roth IRA from someone who isn't your spouse, your options are fairly limited. You can't roll the proceeds over to your own IRA, treat the IRA as your own, or make any additional contributions to the IRA. What you can do is transfer the assets to a different IRA provider, as long as the registration of the account continues to
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Published on November 14, 2012
Comments 2
Category: General Retirement Issues
November 12, 2012 — (Note: See our followup to this article, “The X Factor in Retirement“, which recapped comments made here). Americans love their pets, there is no getting around that. According to the World Society for the Protection of Animals, the USA is the overwhelming pet capital of…
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Published on November 12, 2012
Comments 51
