Let Your Grand Strategy Guide: Planning for Changing Times
So the Democrats have triumphed, winning White House and Congress, and no, I don’t know what will now happen. I do have some pretty...
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Joe, We Hardly Know You: Planning When the Future’s Opaque
You can breathe: Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is now the 46th US president, with Kamala Devi Harris second in line. The dust has now...
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Misconceptions of Estate Planning – and Some Efficient Solutions
We start out with best intentions. Why does it all go haywire? Poor planning; wishful thinking. The tangle of details, brambles and...
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Equally Loved, Unequally Abled: How to Divide Inheritance Among Your Children
We face something of a moral issue today, one where survey and calculation do us no good. We face something of a moral issue today...
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Learning to Love: The Rising Desire for Life Insurance
It needs to be said, but I’ll soften the indecorous ‘I told you so’ with smoothly digestible Latin: Quod erat demonstrandum. QED...
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The Contrary Faces of Indexed Universal Life
You shouldn’t know how sausage gets stuffed, policies cooked up, why the boss is so steamed. It’s best not to know; walk on and...
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Catch 2020: Lessons of a Ruthlessly Instructive Year
It’s the time when we start making plans for the coming year, but the hope and resolve so normally seen are missing. I suppose it’s...
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Keeper of the Keys: Insuring Vital Leaders – Job One in 2021
Our first article for the year concerns keyman insurance. Now, suppress that yawn and hold your attention a moment, because my...
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Good Policies Gone Bad: When to Let Go of a Universal Life Plan
David Lee Roth once said that he’d never owned anything better than a dog, a radio or a bicycle. No mention made of Dave’s favored...
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Give It Away Now: Shrinking Swollen Estates Before It’s Too Late
“Holiday gift-giving gives me a pain in my big broad – Bertie! Stop that!” So said my supervisor just a moment ago, chastising her...
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Speak of It Never – Will Covid Survivors Become Actuarial Victims?
There are some things we simply cannot say. The English language is unusually expressive. Its vocabulary is colossal; the champion...
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‘Sauve qui peut’: Is Covid Driving the Unwise to Early Retirement?
As Napoleon’s great army, hard as iron and brittle as volcanic glass, teetered between near-run victory and ignominious flight at...
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Here Comes Tax-y Claus: ‘Tis the Season for Giving – And Protecting Your Estate
It seems pretty certain, as far as we know, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will soon be spending business hours in the White...
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We’re Looking Sunny: Living the Life of Enjoyment in Retirement
It’s my job to constantly inveigle you to plan, save and suffer for a prosperous retirement. I’m at you all the time – will I ever...
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The Long Goodbye: Delaying Retirement, Working Forever, and Life Insurance in a Postmodern World
Memo to management: I intend to perish at my desk. Request extra vigilance from cleaning staff. Old dad would have thought I was...
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Freeze Frame: Tools for Estate Planning, Come What May
I’m feeling like Odysseus today: strapped to the mast with a big-n-tall belt bought in the stoa of Ithaca, wondering if the siren...
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