When developing your long-term financial plan, consider annuities.

Annuities give you the opportunity for lifetime payments and tax-deferring earnings. The advisors at TW Group, Inc. can assist you in mapping out your retirement strategy and explain how annuities can help your financial security.

Hannah was just 5 when she and her mom, Laura, got to tag along on her father’s business trip. Etched in her memory is the fun afternoon they had while they were waiting in the hotel for her father to return. “My mom was so full of life and dancing around,” says Hannah. “It was a great day.”

Here’s something to think about -- the median cost for a year in a nursing home is about $82,000 a year, according to an industry survey. Most Americans over 65 will need some type of long-term care.

Employee health benefits can have huge value, but you may not be taking full advantage of yours.

Here are three hacks that can help you get more out of what your company offers.

Medicare is a great program for retirees, but it ain't free. Even original Medicare has costs associated with it, and Medicare Advantage plans, which are issued by private insurance companies, can get quite spendy -- sometimes in ways you wouldn't expect. Before you sign up for such a plan, check the fine print for any of the following expenses to understand how much the plan will really cost you.

Americans have a lot of questions that worry them when they think about retirement.

Will their savings hold out? Will Social Security still be around? Will healthcare costs gouge a great hole in their finances?

Medicare is a great program for retirees, but it ain't free. Even original Medicare has costs associated with it, and Medicare Advantage plans, which are issued by private insurance companies, can get quite spendy -- sometimes in ways you wouldn't expect. Before you sign up for such a plan, check the fine print for any of the following expenses to understand how much the plan will really cost you.

What retirees need to know, before they need it.

If you've helped an elderly friend or relative find and figure out how to pay for long-term care, or you've done so yourself, you likely confronted a bewildering maze of unfamiliar terms as well as extreme financial complexity.

​There's a reason workers are advised to save aggressively for retirement. Though you might ultimately end up spending less money in retirement than you do during your working years, there are certain costs, like healthcare, that have a tendency to sneak up on seniors. Throw in the fact that a good 30% of 65-year-olds and over still carry mortgage debt, and it's no wonder so many retirees wind up struggling financially to some extent. But while you can't bust out a crystal ball and determine exactly how much money you'll need in the future, you can do your part to prepare for the lesser-known expenses you're bound to encounter in retirement -- specifically, taxes.

Buffer annuities, also known as structured or variable-indexed annuities, are starting to gain traction.

These products, a cross between indexed and variable annuities, have seen sales surge, as several other annuities have seen sales retreat. The Insured Retirement Institute, in its state of the industry report published in December, went so far as to say buffer annuities are "beginning to flourish."