Josh writes: My wife and I got married three years ago. We have decided to start a family and Sarah thinks I need to get life insurance. We both work and she plans to continue working after the birth of our child. It seems like we should wait until we actually have a family before we spend money on life insurance. What do you recommend?

The annual health insurance open enrollment period is going on now (through January 31). If you’re an employer, you may be thinking about the steps necessary to make sure you've provided your workers with the proper health benefit choices.

Though an annuity can be a valuable retirement savings tool, it's not the right solution for everyone. If you're interested in buying an annuity, make sure you know what you're getting into before signing that contract. Here are a few common annuity misunderstandings that could backfire if you don't set yourself straight.

The way Americans build their retirement nest egg has changed over the past few decades. Gone are the days where a company pension served as the cornerstone of retirement assets for many Americans.

Author: Unknown
Source: Legal Bistro
Retrieved from: blog.legalbistro.com

Source: ​https://gpi.advisorprofiles.com/article/290909/0/LG4hbt1HlQ0kRC5D

As with any trend, there are reasons to back it up. IUL is the fastest growing individual life insurance product. LIMRA shows 2019 second quarter growth at 23%. In its simplest form, it is a universal life product supported by the cash value that is credited by the index it is tied to and the deposits the client funds it with. By far, the most common index is the S&P 500.

It's open enrollment season for Medicare beneficiaries.

And, as in past years, there are changes, especially with Medicare Advantage plans, that might trip you up if you're not careful, says Katy Votava, president of Goodcare.com and author of Making the Most of Medicare: A Guide for Baby Boomers.

​An immediate annuity pays out income right away, as soon as it is purchased from the annuity issuer. Sometimes these vehicles are called “payout annuities” or “income annuities.”

While traditional stand-alone long-term care insurance (LTC) products have seen a drop in popularity in the past several years as a result of companies leaving the marketplace and of spiraling policy premiums, life insurance-backed long-term care financing strategies have experienced tremendous growth. In 2019, life-LTC hybrid policies increased by about 5 percent to 260,000 new policies sold. To put this in perspective, only 70,000 stand-alone policies were sold in 2019, but over 750,000 had been sold back in 2000. Furthermore, new premiums paid for these hybrid policies increased by over 18 percent, and about 25 percent of all new U.S. life insurance premiums paid went to policies that offer benefits for long-term care or chronic illness. While there have been a few new products developed in the stand-alone long-term care insurance market like one rolled out in the summer of 2019 by New York Life, most of the recent developments have been in the hybrid-based life insurance market.