Financial Planning

The hedging programs used by insurance companies to support the guaranteed living benefit features in their variable annuity products have held-up well recently. Milliman reports that insurance companies supported 94% of their guarantees for the six month period ending in March 2009. The success of the hedging programs and the highly volatile capital market environment have encouraged many insurers to increase their hedging efforts. As reported in an earlier post , the increase in hedging...

There is an increase in demand for financial planning services among employers. The planning services are paid for by the employer and are offered as a benefit to employees. Firms that offer the planning services such as Ernst and Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers have notices a significant uptick in their business. Business is up 20% from the previous year at E&Y and 25% at PWC. The financial crisis has likely been a catalyst for the increased demand as many employees are confused and...

Brett Arends writes a personal finance column for the Wall Street Journal. He is one of the more interesting and popular personal finance writers in the industry. Although a subscription is required to read the Wall Street Journal, Arends' column (among other Journal features) is highly recommended. For the past two weeks, Arends has written columns that focus on annuities. The columns can be accessed by clicking here and here . Both articles are highly recommended. Topics addressed include:...