If you’re invested in bond mutual funds, relax. The Great Bond Collapse, touted by so many noisy commentators last month, has been put on indefinite hold. Fears of ramped up inflation and spikes in interest rates were premature. Bond funds still look like sound investments, for income and diversification.
So make yourself a hot cup of [...]
Did you get a payout from a life insurance policy? Is it sitting in a special checking account provided by the insurance company?
A class action lawsuit, filed recently and amended today, slams the Prudential Insurance Company of America for taking financial advantage of beneficiaries. Pru earns 5 to 6 percent on that money, the complaint [...]
Everyone within shouting distance of a consumer columnist knows that term life insurance is the smartest and best way of protecting your family. Boomers loaded up when their kids were young, usually with policies that lasted for 20 years. But when you buy, you rarely think about what will happen when the term runs out. [...]
Sales commissions drive the “advice” you get from brokers and other financial advisers. They promote products that pay them the highest commissions, even when they know about better (and cheaper) ones. Case in point: a story in Investment News on the newest tax-deferred annuities. These investments are notoriously expensive for consumers (although you rarely know [...]
Buy life insurance only if you really need it. That sounds so sensible that you probably wonder why I bother saying it at all. But I see thousands of people wasting good money on policies they don’t need and will probably cancel—all because they fell into the hands of an insurance agent. Agents think that [...]
