As the baby boomer generation slouches toward retirement age, advisors who serve them are in an increasingly precarious position. One problem is that the boomer clients are in the process of shifting from asset-accumulation to asset-withdrawal...
Those searching for evidence of the brokerage industry's progress towards true wealth management need look no further than registered reps' evolving attitudes towards life insurance. Reps historically have been reluctant to sell life insurance...
Citizens Financial Group is punishing its brokerage force for targeting elderly bank customers in the sale of its high-risk variable annuities. How? By taking away the things brokers love: Red Sox playoff tickets, limousine trips to Mohegan Sun...
The story of insurance sales in the brokerage industry is one of untapped potential. According to a recent survey by Registered Rep. and The Hartford Life Insurance Co., 69 percent of registered reps are licensed to sell life insurance products...
Despite the recent onslaught of negative regulatory and media attention to variable annuities, sales of these products have not suffered. In fact, they have continued to grow over the past three years, even as sales of fixed annuities have slipped...
For registered reps, annuities, one of the most lucrative and complex items in an advisor's repertoire, can appear to be a cure-all for clients. Clients seem to love them, because of the guaranteed income even if they don't understand them. Many...
There is one thing that can be deadly medicine to the financial health of even well-prepared clients: long-term care. This year, the number of men and women over the age of 65 who will need long-term care will hit nine million, or about 3 percent...
Those who have trouble getting excited by insurance products should note the following: A recent study by LIMRA International, a Windsor, Conn.-based research and consulting firm, showed that 44 percent of U.S. households say they need more life...
It's a rare event indeed when an IRS ruling is cause for celebration, but such was the case in April when the tax-meisters made some alternative deferred-compensation funding investments more tax friendly. Specifically, the IRS ruled that an...
A Morgan Stanley advisor sat at his desk a few months ago, reviewing his professional life. During the late 90s boom, he had been trading millions of dollars a day. When, like many reps, he crashed to earth in the boom's aftermath, he had to re...
