Insurance News Net, June 30th, 2009
Early this
year the woman overseeing the 401(k) plan for a rural Oregon company
gathered her 25 colleagues together to hold an election. At stake:
whether to continue paying AIG an annual 1.25% of assets to manage
their 401(k) plan as part of an insurance contract, or switch to mutual funds costing a third less. No surprise that the proposal to convert passed easily.
Then the nasty surprises started popping up. As she sought to unwind
the plan, the administrator discovered that AIG had been tacking on a
variety of fees all along. One nicked employees for 2% annually when
they borrowed money from their own 401(k)s--work the new plan was
willing to do for a flat $50 a year.
To top it off, AIG said
that many of the employees would have to wait five years to get back
their entire nest eggs, with no choice but to keep paying the fees. AIG
says such lockups are disclosed in its plan contracts and are shorter
than the ones many other insurers impose.
The company's
frustrated administrator, who agreed to talk only anonymously, says
she's still baffled by the complex annuity contract. "We still don't
have a good handle on what they're charging us," she says.
Like the Oregon outfit, lots of mostly small companies are finding out the hard way that the 401(k) plans they bought from insurance
companies, usually set up as "group annuities," came with a variety of
hard-to-find charges and lockups. Or, more aptly, the plans they were sold by
people motivated by lavish commissions. Many hyped the product as a
low- or no-cost proposition for employers while glossing over the fees
charged to employees. A successful ruse it is. All told, insurers have
lured 18,000 companies into parking $185 billion of 401(k) assets
inside group annuities and similar insurance contracts, according to an analysis by Larkspur Data Resources of plans with under $250 million in assets.
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CNN, June 30th, 2009
With the uncertainty of the market these days, a lot of investors
are running for cover with their retirement funds. No wonder sales of
fixed annuities surged 74% for the first three months of 2009,
according to research association LIMRA.
These insurance
products provide tax-deferred growth at a fixed rate - higher than that
of CDs now - with the option to later turn the money into guaranteed
income for life. It's a compelling pitch. But there's a costly catch.
Getting into a fixed annuity today may force you to miss better
opportunities tomorrow.
Know what's being sold
First,
a clarification - because the world of annuities is anything but clear.
The term "fixed annuity" typically refers to a deferred annuity. That's
different from an immediate annuity, for which you turn over a lump sum
to an insurer and start getting regular payments within a year.
Deferred annuities are more like CDs; in fact, insurers often promote
them as a higher-yielding alternative.
Aimed at retirees and
pre-retirees, deferred annuities may promise a high teaser rate - based
on prevailing interest rates - in year one, then readjust yearly based
on market conditions, with a guaranteed minimum. Or they may offer a
more modest fixed rate for longer. For example: In May, Mutual of Omaha
offered 4.65% the first year for contracts of $100,000 or more, with
3.65% in years two through five. (That's compared with an average of
2.19% on a five-year CD at the time.)
While there's no term on
either type of contract, you're hemmed in for five to seven years by
surrender fees, often around 7% initially. (Some do allow yearly
fee-free withdrawals of up to 10% of the account value, however.)
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US News & World Report, July 1st, 2009
The rising popularity of federally insured reverse
mortgages
attracted 1,500 new lenders into the program last year, more than
doubling the total of participating lenders. And while reports of
consumer abuse and fraud are infrequent, legislators and regulators are
calling for strengthened oversight to protect seniors from aggressive
or outright unscrupulous lenders.
The federal Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program allows
homeowners aged 62 and up to borrow money against the equity in their
homes. The funds are available as lump sums, regular payments or lines
of credit. Borrowers can remain in their homes as long as they're able
without making further mortgage payments. They do, however, need to pay
property
taxes and
insurance
and keep up the home. The interest payments on the money they borrow
are paid to lenders out of the remaining equity in the home. If
borrowers stay in the home long enough to use up all their equity, they
generally face no further financial obligation to the lender.
At field hearings this week in St. Louis, convened by Missouri
Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, attention was focused on beefing up
the legally required consumer consulting sessions that are supposed to
help potential borrowers understand the complicated HECM program and
make sound decisions. As it turns out,
according to a report by
the General Accountability Office (GAO), the sessions often exclude key
information that consumers should know. Under current rules, counseling
sessions also can be done on the telephone, and some regulators feel
face-to-face meetings should be required.
The GAO also reviewed HECM lender marketing materials and highlighted
six promotional claims and reasons they might mislead consumers:
1) Never owe more than the value of your home.
Borrowers or their heirs could have a loan balance greater than the
value of the home. While they could walk away from the property and not
owe the money, they would need to pay it if for any reason they wanted
to keep the home. The GAO said this was the most common misleading
statement it encountered and was even made in government materials that
were later changed.
2) Implications that the reverse mortgage is a “government benefit” or otherwise, not a loan. HECMs are federally insured but they are a loan, not a benefit.
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 30th, 2009
Poor oversight of the fast-growing reverse mortgage industry leaves
older people vulnerable to scams and could burden taxpayers, U.S. Sen.
Claire McCaskill said Monday at a hearing on the federally insured
loans.
The hearing at Ochs Senior Center in Heman Park was technically a
meeting of the Senate's Special Committee on Aging. But McCaskill was
the only committee member present. For more than two hours, she
questioned local consumer advocates and grilled Washington-based
government regulators and a representative of the reverse mortgage
lending industry.
Reforms of reverse mortgages are needed, McCaskill said, to protect
consumers and to avoid a meltdown similar to the one that preceded the
recent real-estate collapse.
"If we learn nothing from the subprime mess, we all deserve to be
horsewhipped," McCaskill said after the hearing. "The (reverse
mortgage) program can be a great benefit to seniors … But, if it goes
badly, it's the American taxpayer that is holding the bag."
A reverse mortgage is a special type of home loan that lets consumers
convert a portion of their home's equity into cash. It's different from
a home equity loan or second mortgage, because borrowers do not repay
the loan as long as they live in their home and pay insurance and tax
bills. Typically, loans are repaid after the borrower moves or dies and
the home is sold.
The vast majority of reverse mortgages are backed by the government.
The federal government has backed about 500,000 reverse mortgages since
1990. If some projections prove accurate, that number could jump to as
high as 700,000 this year.
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National Public Radio, June 29th, 2009
With the recession squeezing wages and
holding back stock prices, millions of Americans are being forced to
rethink their plans for retirement, according to a new survey.
Watson
Wyatt Worldwide Inc., a retirement consulting firm, has released a
survey showing that in the past year, 44 percent of workers age 50 or
older have had to delay their planned retirement date. Three-quarters
of those now planning to postpone retirement cite the loss of savings
in their 401(k) accounts as the single biggest reason, the survey
showed. The respondents also said they need to work longer because of
rising health care costs and fears about price inflation.
If
Americans do keep working longer, it would reverse a decades-long trend
toward earlier retirement. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says the
average age for men at retirement in the early 1950s was just under 67.
That age fell continually until it hit 62 in the late 1990s.
The
survey of 2,200 full-time workers suggests the recession, stock market
crash and drop in home values could dramatically reverse the early
retirement trend. Half of workers over age 50 now say they plan to
retire at age 66 or later.
"The economic crisis has affected
many workers' retirement plans and nest eggs, but those nearest to
retirement have been especially hard hit," David Speier, senior
retirement consultant at Watson Wyatt, said in a written analysis of
the data. "Older workers do not have the time to offset declining
retirement account values, either by recouping their investment losses
or significantly increasing their savings rate. For many, the only
choice is to delay retirement."
A Federal Reserve survey in
2007 found that the median household in the pre-retirement age group —
ages 55 to 64 — had total financial assets of more than $72,000. Based
on the stock market's performance over the past two years, those
savings would have been whittled down to $55,000.
Such losses
appear to be spurring more Americans to save. On Friday, the Commerce
Department said the savings rate spiked to 6.9 percent in May, up from
5.6 percent the previous month. That's the highest savings level in 15
years.
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Boston Globe, June 24th, 2009
I have enough. I hope you find you do, too, when you consider what’s really important in your life.
I’ve pondered the question of how
much is enough after receiving a perceptive e-mail from a reader and
review copies of two thought-provoking books.
The e-mail, from a longtime reader in Wisconsin, embodies the philosophy guiding my own semiretirement.
“Many
of my 50-something friends are wasting some invaluable time that
they’ve been given on Earth,’’ this reader said. They are caught up in
an “earning and spending cycle’’ (must keep working hard so they can
keep buying things they don’t really need) while worrying they’ll need
to save a lot of money to retire.
“I
can’t believe the number of smart, talented friends I have who are not
particularly happy doing what they are doing,’’ the reader said. But
they believe “they must continue so they can stop working at
(fill-in-the-blank age) to play golf or sit by the pool.’’
I must agree. What a waste, doing something you don’t like so eventually you can stop and do . . . nothing?
Why
not pursue your passions even if the pay is less? (This reader did,
returning to school for a degree in a different field.) If you love
what you do, you may never feel the need to totally retire, or at least
won’t mind working a few more years. Retirement, as this reader said,
would be a time to work for joy and learn new things.
UPI, June 24th, 2009
A comprehensive approach could slow healthcare cost increases in the
United Sates even while achieving near-universal coverage, an analysis
indicates.
However, the findings of The Commonwealth Fund study released
Wednesday reveal the national savings that could be realized from
health insurance,
provider payment and care delivery system reforms would vary
significantly depending on whether or not a public insurance plan
option is included and how such a plan is structured.
The private foundation's analysis examined three scenarios: a public
plan option with healthcare providers paid midway between current
Medicare and private plan rates; a public plan option with payments more closely to Medicare rates; and no public plan, relying exclusively on private plans.
Commonwealth's study found cumulative health system savings between
2010 and 2020, compared with projected trends for that period, would
range from $3.0 trillion under a public plan paying providers at
Medicare rates in competition with private plans, to $2.0 trillion for
a public plan paying providers at rates between Medicare and private
plan rates, to $1.2 trillion in the private plan-only scenario.
All three approaches would make affordable coverage available to
everyone, the 91-year-old healthcare oriented organization said.
Key to each version would be significant reforms to the way the
nation pays for care, rewarding value and efficiency over volume,
Commonwealth said in a news release.
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US News & World Report, June 17th, 2009
Since the credit and housing meltdown largely removed private reverse mortgages from the market, home equity conversion mortgages
(HECMs)—federally insured reverse mortgages—have been growing steadily.
Now, with housing activity improving in most markets, the time is right
for homeowners age 62 and older to see if a HECM might work for them.
The loans have been controversial, and they are complicated, which is
one reason that consumer counseling is a required component of the HECM
loan process.
Pros . The
benefits of a HECM loan are that people get to stay in their homes as
long as they wish without making further mortgage payments. They can
access the available equity in their home whenever they want, and that
amount of money is guaranteed to them because their loan is federally
insured. They retain the title to the home until they leave, and any
untapped equity or price appreciation can be captured by them or their
heirs by selling the home. If they've stayed in the home so long that
they owe more money on the HECM loan than the home is worth, they can
simply walk away with no financial obligations under HECM's nonrecourse
loan rules.
Cons. The downside of a HECM is that fees and closing
costs can be steep. Also, a fair-sized percentage of a home's equity
must be set aside to cover future interest payments on the loan funds
that lenders have committed to pay to the borrowers. Some private firms
selling HECMs have been charged with misleading and overly aggressive
sales tactics. And some borrowers have been encouraged to use the loan
proceeds to make risky or unwise investments.
Safeguards. Last week, the comptroller of the
currency, John C. Dugan, compared reverse mortgages to subprime loans.
Because borrowers need not provide financial information or credit
scores to qualify for a HECM, he noted, it's not clear whether they
have the financial ability to maintain the home and stay current on insurance
and property taxes. Failure to do so is grounds for the lender to take
over the home, and Dugan urged regulators to develop stronger consumer
safeguards to weed out unqualified borrowers. An official with the
Federal Housing Administration, which oversees the HECM program,
says such defaults are less than 1 percent of HECM loans but that
regulations will be proposed later this year to require lenders to seek
financial information from loan applicants and to include set-asides
for home insurance and taxes if they feel the borrower will have
trouble keeping up with such payments.
Here are eight questions you should answer to determine if a HECM is a good idea for you.
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The Washington Post, June 23rd, 2009
President Obama today announced an offer by drug manufacturers to
contribute $80 billion over the next decade to narrow the controversial
gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage, a deal the president said
moves the nation a step closer to comprehensive health care reform.
"This is a significant breakthrough on the road to health care
reform, one that will make the difference in the lives of many older
Americans," Obama said as he made the announcement from the White House.
The president was joined at the White House today by Barry Rand,
head of the influential senior citizens' advocacy group, AARP, which
endorsed the deal.
"This is an early win for reform. It's a major step forward," Rand said.
Obama reiterated his vow to restructure the nation's health care
system to expand care and slow the increase in long-term expenses,
despite mounting concerns about the initial costs and structure of
various plans that have been put forward. "And to those ... here in
Washington who've grown accustomed to sky-is-falling prognoses and the
certainties that we cannot get this done, I have to repeat and revive
an old saying we had from the campaign: Yes, we can," Obama said. "We
are going to get this done."
After weeks of
secret talks, the pharmaceutical industry trade group voted Friday to
dedicate $80 billion to lowering the price of medicines sold to seniors
and the government. The unusual offer by the Pharmaceutical Research
and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) is part of its effort to convince
skeptical lawmakers that it backs major health-care legislation.
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Yahoo News, June 23rd, 2009
The world's 65-and-older population will triple by mid-century to 1
in 6 people, leaving the U.S. and other nations struggling to support
the elderly.
The number
of senior citizens has already jumped 23 percent since 2000 to 516
million, according to U.S. census estimates released on Tuesday. That
is more than double the growth rate for the general population.
The
world's population has been graying for many years due to declining
births and medical advances that have extended life spans. As the
fastest-growing age group, seniors now comprise just under 8 percent of
the world's 6.8 billion people. But demographers warn the biggest shift
is yet to come. They cite a coming wave of retirements from baby
boomers and China's Red Guard generation that will shrink pensions and
add to rising health care costs.
Germany, Italy, Japan and Monaco have the most senior citizens, with 20 percent or more of their people 65 and older.
In
the U.S., residents who are 65 and older currently make up 13 percent
of the population, but that will double to 88.5 million by mid-century.
In two years, the oldest of the baby boomers will start turning 65. The
baby boomer bulge will continue padding the senior population year
after year, growing to 1 in 5 U.S. residents by 2030.
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The New York Times, June 19th, 2009
But what should you do right now with the money you have left?
Should you wade back into the stock market, if you bailed out when the
market was plunging? Or if you watched your investments
drop and then recover a little in the last few months, should you just
hold on? What happens if the market doesn’t fully recover for a long
time? (That happened in Japan in the ’90s.)
This economic
downturn has been steep enough and frightening enough to undermine the
idea that the stock market, over time, will always deliver. So a lot of
investors have retreated to a more conservative stance.
The
wisdom of that move is debatable. The investment industry warns that
becoming too defensive is costly in the long run. Its argument goes
something like this: People are living longer, retirement may last 25
or 30 years and stocks
are supposed to protect you from the ravages of inflation. And since
stocks tend to outpace most investments over long periods of time, the
industry says, your savings will do all right in the end.
But some people are no longer comfortable with that logic. There’s even a new study
that contends holding stocks over long periods of time may be riskier
than previously thought. Robert F. Stambaugh, a finance professor at
the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
and a co-author of the report, said most investment research only
accounted for the risk of short-term market swings around the stock
market’s average gain over time. It doesn’t factor in the fact, he
said, that the average itself is subject to change.
So what should retirees and pre-retirees make of all of this?
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San Francisco Examiner, June 19th, 2009
Over the past few
months, we have heard that Social Security and Medicare have been hit
hard by the current recession. The experts are warning that these funds
may be empty far sooner than previously expected. These warnings make
us question the retirement safety net millions of workers have depended
upon. Since more
and more pension funds are disappearing or are greatly reduced, workers
have to look to other solutions for retirement income. We can no longer
count on employers. Plus many of us do have not employer sponsored
retirement plans anyway.
And since other reports warn that baby boomers have not really saved enough for retirement, something must be done.
If you plan to retire within a decade, think about a 10-year plan:
10 Years to Go:
Evaluate assets and debts. Check an online retirement calculator to
determine how much money you will need for a successful retirement.
Have you saved enough? Do you have a lot of debt? Compare where you are
with where you need to be.
9 Years to Go:
Do you have disability insurance in place to protect your income while
you are working? Most employers provide this coverage. If yours does
not, purchase your own insurance to cover you until retirement age.
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Reverse Mortgage Daily, June 19th, 2009
California’s Senate Committee on Banking, Finance, and Insurance
passed a new version of AB 329 by a 9-2 vote on Tuesday and is being
referred to the Committee on Judiciary according to the Senate’s website.
AB 329 includes provisions which prohibit any person who
participates in the origination process from requiring an applicant to
purchase an annuity as a condition of obtaining a reverse mortgage. It
also prohibits referring the borrower to anyone for the purchase of an
annuity or other financial or insurance products prior to closing the
reverse mortgage or before the borrower’s rescission period is
complete.
AB 329 also revises the notice that must be provided by a reverse
mortgage lender to a prospective borrower before the lender takes a
loan application by adding the following language, and would require
that the notice be given to the prospective borrower before that
borrower receives counseling:
SENIOR CITIZEN ADVOCACY GROUPS ADVISE AGAINST USING THE
PROCEEDS OF A REVERSE MORTGAGE TO PURCHASE AN ANNUITY OR RELATED
FINANCIAL PRODUCTS. IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING USING YOUR PROCEEDS FOR THIS
PURPOSE, YOU SHOULD DISCUSS THE FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF DOING SO WITH
YOUR COUNSELOR AND FAMILY MEMBERS;
The bill also requires that lenders give borrowers a list of 10
counseling agencies and goes beyond federal law by requiring the
provision of a specified checklist to prospective borrowers, for their
use when discussing the potential ramifications of a reverse mortgage
with a HUD-certified housing counselor.
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The New York Times, June 18th, 2009
Louis Licata has shelved plans to hire three more employees for his
Cleveland law firm. Jeannie Macone, of Florida, is cutting back on
inventory for her trinket and home décor business. In Ohio, Patrick
Allen has slashed employee travel and begun paying cash for work
dinners with clients of the marketing firm that he started from scratch.
A crackdown on credit limits by card companies is squeezing the
nation’s 27 million small businesses, exacerbating the problems brought
on by a stagnant economy.
Owning a small business has always been
a challenge — half wind up failing within the first few years. But the
financial crisis has dealt them a one-two punch, as big banks cut the credit card lines that many entrepreneurs were forced to lean on when a once-abundant supply of loans dried up.
As
of April, 59 percent of America’s small firms relied on credit cards to
help finance their day-to-day operations, up from 44 percent at the end
of last year, according to the National Small Business Association.
The
number of small-business owners who depend on a credit card to buy
items as varied as paper clips and heavy equipment has climbed steadily
over the years, from just 16 percent in 1993. Today, that group makes
up 11 percent of the revenue for
Visa and
MasterCard, from 3 percent in 1998, according to
David Robertson, who publishes The Nilson Report on the credit card industry.
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The Business Insider, June 17th, 2009
So far, the collapse of the world economy since April 2008 has been
worse than the collapse in the Great Depression. One glance at the
fall world output, trade, and stock prices puts the recent "green
shoots" in perspective.
The government policy response to the collapse, however, has been
much more aggressive. Thus, we will soon collectively learn whether
the economic historians are right that the original Great Depression
was caused by "policy errors" after the collapse...or whether, as some
suspect, there is simply no way to avoid catastrophe after a financial
bubble the size of the one we just had.
Professors Barry Eichengreen (Berkeley) and Kevin O'Rourke (Trinity)
have updated their series of charts that compare the progress of this
"Depression event", as they're calling it, with the Great Depression.
The originals and a more detailed write-up can be found here, at Vox. We've arranged them into a quick slideshow below.
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