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9 Ways to Avoid Medicare Sales Scams
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2008 Comment (4)Medicare sales and marketing abuses are a recurring problem that doesn't get discussed much. However, persistent patterns of overly aggressive sales practices were serious enough to spur federal legislation last summer that spells out practices that Medicare beneficiaries should not encounter or, if they do, should not tolerate.
So, during open enrollment for Medicare, make sure you're on the alert for improper sales pitches and outright scams.
According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, here are nine marketing do's and don'ts that consumers need to know. Anyone who represents himself or herself as selling a Medicare policy:
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4 Expert Annuity Tips for Income Seekers
Tweet Share on Facebook December 12, 2008 Comment (3)I spoke with several financial advisers about the role annuities play in their clients' portfolios, and the answers literally ranged from "Love 'em" to "Hate 'em." The common ground among the advisers was to look for the best product match with their clients' needs and to use an annuity if it provided that match.
The best way to determine whether an annuity product is suitable for you is to first define exactly what you want to invest, the type of return you want, your appetite for risk, the stability of your financial situation, how you're positioned for surprise expense needs, and your family and legacy considerations.
Once you have this knowledge, you should then work with a financial adviser to determine if there's an annuity product that works for you. (If you need a brush-up on the basics of annuities, we've got one here.)
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15 Things You Need to Know Now About Annuities
Tweet Share on Facebook December 12, 2008 Comment (2)With the retirement playing field littered with crushed investments and dreams, the safety of guaranteed income streams looks more attractive each day. Annuities can provide such guarantees, so let's take a look at them and consider whether they make sense for you.
1) Simply stated, an annuity is a financial product sold by insurance companies that allows you to put aside money, have it increase each year without paying taxes, and then trigger a stream of future payments on a timetable you may control. Those payments are taxed as ordinary income. Unlike IRAs, there is no income limitation on how much you can place in an annuity.
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Tips to Cut Your Drug Costs
Tweet Share on Facebook December 9, 2008 Comment (3)Drug price inflation seems impervious even to a recession, so it makes more sense than ever to do a thorough exam of your drug costs at least once a year. Heck, we take our cars in for a tuneup at least that often, and maintenance costs for a car are much less than most of us pay for prescription drugs.
The exam is relatively easy, too, now that inexpensive generic drug programs at discount and chain pharmacies have taken off. Since Medicare began its Part D prescription drug program in 2006, Wal-Mart and other national (and even local) chains have introduced and expanded generic prescription programs. And with Part D premiums set to rise an average of 30 percent in 2009, finding cheap generics makes increasingly good sense.
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Is Your Long-Term Care Policy Safe?
Tweet Share on Facebook December 5, 2008 Comment (12)Conseco's move earlier this month to shift roughly 150,000 of its older long-term care policies to a trust overseen by Pennsylvania insurance regulators is a shocker.
Notwithstanding a comforting letter to affected policyholders from C. Everett Koop, former U.S. surgeon general, the jettisoning by Conseco of a longtime money-losing book of business means that the policies are now self-funding and can no longer look to Conseco to provide financial support.
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10 Healthcare Changes Caused by the Economy
Tweet Share on Facebook December 3, 2008 Comment (4)Older Americans are cutting back on their healthcare because of the recession, an AARP survey finds, with 20 percent saying they have health problems caused by financial stress and about a sixth saying healthcare cutbacks have adversely affected their health.
The AARP-sponsored study surveyed adults 45 and older and asked them whether they had recently made any of 10 economy-related changes in their healthcare activities. Here's what they said:
