Archives

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December 2000

• Extreme Coverage: Underwriting the Overly Active
  Many people have hobbies that take them to extremes. While these guys might find it easy to summon the guts, they often have trouble finding insurance.
  
  
• The Life Settlement Transaction: An Alternative Estate-Planning Tool
  These transactions are now being extended to healthy seniors, where they can enhance the financial and estate planning flexibility for some affluent seniors.
  
  

November 2000

• Attitude Is Everything
  It may not be what you say, but how you say it.
  
  
• The Estate Tax: A Voluntary Tax?
  If the estate tax finally disappeared, how many sales would you lose?
  
  

October 2000

• Choosing a Trustee
  When looking for a trustee, we tell clients to start with family, then review friends, then look at professional advisors and finally look at institutional trustees.
  
  
• In a Divorce, 50 Percent Isn’t the Same as Half
  Even under the best of circumstances, it is difficult to make everyone happy.
  
  
• The New Shapes Of Long-Term Care
  Once upon a time, in the mid-1980s, LTCI coverages were limited to nursing homes or home health care. Not anymore. Here’s a close look at long-term care options.
  
  
• The Magic Question
  It only takes one sale a day to make it to the top, according to this amusing anecdote.
  
  

September 2000

• Beware The Rogue!
  As financial advisors, we need to be aware of what to look for when a client calls us about an unbelievable investment opportunity.
  
  
• Private Split Dollar: A Buy-Sell Alternative
  This popular estate-planning concept for wealthy families has emerged as an interesting application for small-business succession.
  
  
• Planning, Random Acts and Best Efforts
  The active elements of planning involve starting, doing and adjusting. Without the proper application of each of these steps, any plan will certainly fail to meet the stated objective.
  
  

August 2000

• Advice to the Class of 2000
  Here’s some advice for recent grads.
  
  
• Combining NQDC and Split Dollar
  Understand these two plans and what happens when you put the two together.
  
  
• Opportunity Knocks With Plan Rollovers
  In today’s tight labor market, folks are constantly on the move. This can create important opportunities for you to assist your clients with asset accumulation and allocation.
  
  
• American Notebook: The Agents of Route US 66
  Those two words are enough to start anyone dreaming. Cobbled together from small town main streets, unpaved roads, two-lane thoroughfares and four-lane highways, the Mother Road still winds its way through America’s towns and cities, feeding the dreams of the American people.
  
  

July 2000

• The Balance of Power
  Financial planning is a process, says one successful Maryland advsior.
  
  
• The Forgotten Part of an Estate Plan
  Sometimes, family conflict has nothing to do with the money, and everything to do with the heirlooms.
  
  
• Information vs. Knowledge
  It is not enough to give information, or to have great sales skills or great products. We must continue to provide knowledge, judgment and a personal relationship.
  
  
• Obsession
  In a time when anyone can see thousands of dollars’ worth of investments come and go during a coffee break, advisors frequently have to test their long-term orientations against the client’s urge to react to sudden trends and events.
  
  

June 2000

• In Any Language
  People from countless ethnic backgrounds, aware of the noticeable economic advancement in so many foreign-born communities, are choosing insurance advisor as profession.
  
  
• Your Retirement Exit Plan
  A top-down strategy for getting money out at retirement can have a dramatic effect on lowering future taxes.
  
  
• The Silver Bullet
  Somewhere out there is the answer to every objection ... right?
  
  

May 2000

• Continuation Planning for LLCs
  A limited liability company (LLC) is the only business entity that allows complete pass-through tax advantages and the operational flexibility of a partnership, as well as corporation-style limited liability under state law and management participation by all members.
  
  
• Snags
  The road to a completed insurance sale, like that of true love, is never smooth. Bumps and snags and obstacles are inevitable. So, the editors of Advisor Today set out to discover the snags today’s advisors hit, and how they cope.
  
  
• Sudden Wealth
  Regardless of how clients acquire wealth rapidly, they all have similar problems. Advisors can provide a wealth of information, knowledge and solutions to the new issues clients will face. .
  
  
• Tools, Electricity and the Learning Curve
  Whether insurance is sold across the kitchen table, during a seminar or over the Internet, we have the tools—great tools with great products for great opportunities. By Stephen Gerdel
  
  

April 2000

• You Can Keep What You Make—Soon
  Golf is a lot like taxes: you drive hard to get to the green and then wind up in the hole.
  
  
• Several Sensible Tenets
  What has happened to investing for the long term?
  
  
• Two Realities for a Business Owner
  Many business owners fail to spend enough time to assure the survival of the business they devoted their lives to building.
  
  
• When You Are Sued
  You might not want to think about it, but you, or any agent you supervise, could find yourself sued by a client because of past actions you or one of your agents took.
  
  

February 2000

• Broader Horizons
  Investments are a good way to grow your business and strengthen your relationships with your clients.
  
  
• Pickled Worms
  Several, often unexpected, unwanted and even contradictory conclusions can be drawn from one set of facts.
  
  
• The Survivorship Spousal ILIT
  ILITs can replace income in the event of an untimely death, pay estate taxes and administration expenses, and equalize inheritances among children. However, these trusts are often criticized as inflexible.
  
  
• 10 Huge Planning Themes
  What will be the most influential financial planning and money management issues in the years ahead? Here’s our analysis of the themes to watch, study and use in your practice.
  
  

January 2000

• Estate Tax Elimination?
  It is not economics, but politics, which will assure the tax is not eliminated. Some history may be important to understand this issue.
  
  
• The New Wave
  We profile six successful producers and entrepreneurs who have crafted different approaches to the business that not only break the traditional boundaries of an insurance agency, but can serve as examples for any advisor who wants to catch the energy of the 21st Century.
  
  
• Two Days in the Stock Market
  Any advisor can be a hero in an up market, but I’d rather be a hero when the markets were sinking.
  
  
• Where There's A Will
  An advisor who looks hard enough and can deal with price resistance can usually find life insurance for even the toughest of impaired risks. One reason: competition is so strong that insurance companies don’t want to turn away anyone if they can avoid it. If the premium is high enough, the coverage may be profitable for the carrier and still useful for the buyer.