To Whom Do You Complain? (Spring 2005) It sure sounded good when they were presenting it, but somehow that CD or annuity or investment is not what you thought you were getting and frankly, you are not happy. If you believed you have been wronged a regulatory complaint or hiring an attorney should usually not be the first thing you do (unless there is a specific reason to get the regulators or attorneys involved immediately). Under most circumstances complaints are a three-step process: First. Try to get satisfaction from the agent, advisor, or banker that was involved in the purchase. Second. If that fails, write a registered letter to the bank or insurance company with whom you have the account detailing why you feel you were wronged and what would make it right. If it is a security related complaint write to the individual’s broker/dealer (the name on the representative’s business card after “securities offered through”). Do not make a complaint by phone because you want a written record. Give the company a reasonable deadline in which to respond.

Third. If the company approach fails pull out the big guns. The web sites listed below will lead you to the complaint department of the agency regulating your troubled area where you may file a complaint.

Annuity (This will take you to State Links) www.safemoneyplaces.com/states.htm

Credit Union (NCUA) http://www.ncua.gov/ConsumerInformation/fraudhotline.html

Employee Retirement Plan (Dept. of Labor) http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/oemanual/cha30.html#

Investment Advisor or Planner (SEC) http://www.sec.gov/complaint/selectconduct.shtml

Investment Securities (NASD) http://www.nasd.com

National Banks (OCC) http://www.occ.treas.gov/customer.htm

Savings Banks (OTS) http://www.ots.treas.gov/docs/4/48780.html

State Banks (Federal Reserve Board) http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/complaints/

or (FDIC) http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/questions/index.html

Keep in mind that while a successful complaint to a regulator may provide personal satisfaction it probably will not result in a cash payment to you. If you are looking for fiscal satisfaction you may need to hire an attorney. The attorney will can take the matter to court or assist you if binding arbitration is required.

I have seen folks jump immediately to step 3 and the usual reason is because the original person dealt with starts hiding under the desk when the consumer walks in or does not return calls, and this lack of response prompts the big gun methods. However, I have found most complaints can be resolved by “talking to their boss”, or the boss’s boss to try to get satisfaction before a formal complaint is lodged or the courthouse beckons. But if the first and second steps do not work, or you notice overseas airline tickets on your financial counselor’s desk, then move quickly to the third step. Happy resolution!

Energy Saving Tips (Spring 2006)
 Electric lighting heat must be removed by air conditioning. Turn lights off when not in use.

 A 40 watt incandescent lamp and a 40 fluorescent bulb use the same amount of electricity, but the fluorescent lamp creates five times as much light.

 Plant shrubs and trees around the air conditioning condenser to improve its operating efficiency (but don’t restrict airflow).

 Clean air conditioning ducts to increase the efficiency of the air conditioning system and save on the bills.

 Solar film installed on the south and west windows will keep the house cooler in the summer (reflective materials on the window side of draperies reflect solar heat when the curtains are closed ).

 You can turn off the oven or stove a few minutes before an item is finished cooking and the residual heat will finish the job.

 You can lower the temperature of domestic hot water in the summer and still provide adequate comfort and service.

 Tilt blinds slightly to keep direct sunlight from entering a room and heating it up unnecessarily in the summer.

 Wear lighter clothing in warm weather and raise the air conditioning thermostat.

Balancing Liquidity & Yield (Spring 2006)
 It would not make sense to purchase a 5-year CD if you will need to spend that money in 30 days – choosing the CD costs you a liquidity penalty. By the same logic it does not make sense to keep money that you probably will not need for 5 years in a low yielding savings account – choosing the savings account costs you a yield penalty.

We believe consumers tend to err on the side of liquidity and this results in much less money being available down the road. If you can increase your average yield by only 2% this could mean over $30,000 more in hand in only ten years on an original $100,000 nest egg.

You need enough liquidity so you can sleep at night and not worry about cash needs. How much liquidity is enough? Only you can decide that, but liquidity has costs.

Does it make sense to select a fixed annuity or certificate of deposit with an initial withdrawal penalty instead of keeping the money in a savings account with no penalties? Yes, if there is little likelihood of needing money from the annuity and incurring the penalty, AND the CD or annuity delivers a yield higher than the savings account.

Financial decisions are not made in a vacuum, but are always a choice between alternatives and the net after-penalty yields need to be compared to determine the true cost of liquidity.

One needs to understand the realities of the solutions. A money market account will generally earn less than a certificate of deposit; however, a dollar in a CD has withdrawal costs that a money market account does not have.

 The overriding guideline is that to have enough liquidity to be able to sleep at night and not worry about cash needs.  

Simplify Your Finances (Summer 2006)

 Simplify your life: Have your Social Security benefits, pension payments and other income automatically deposited into your bank account each month. Also arrange with your bank to automatically pay your mortgage, utility bills, insurance premiums and other recurring charges. Doing so takes the hassle out of making scheduled payments and helps avoid late charges or service interruptions. You can also have automatic withdrawals from your bank account to routinely put a certain amount of money into a savings account, a certificate of deposit (CD), an annuity or a U.S. Savings Bond.

 It's Never Too Late to Simplify and Organize Your Finances

 Telephone banking allows you to use your phone to confirm that checks or deposits have cleared, get your latest balance or transfer money between different accounts at the same bank. And if you own a home computer, consider banking and bill paying quickly and easily over the Internet, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Internet banking and bill paying is usually free of charge or it costs less than what you'd spend on postage.

 Protect your important documents: Make sure your bank and brokerage statements, insurance policies, Social Security and company pension records, and other personal and financial papers are in a safe place and easy to get to.

 As the victims of recent disasters have learned, it's wise to take extra precautions with essential records. For the most important original documents, such as wills, passports and birth certificates, seal them in airtight and waterproof containers to prevent water damage. Make backup copies and consider giving duplicates to loved ones — or at least let them know.

 Consider renting a safe deposit box at your bank for certain papers that could be difficult or impossible to replace, such as birth certificates. Don't put into a safe deposit box anything you might need in an emergency, such as your passport or medical-care directives, in case your bank is closed for the weekend. There may be complications accessing a will in a safe deposit box after the person dies, and remember that copies of wills aren't valid. Perhaps the best approach is to ask your attorney for guidance. For the most important papers you keep at home, consider an inexpensive but durable home safe.

 Take precautions with old accounts. For the benefit of your heirs, either dispose of proof of old bank and brokerage accounts, life insurance policies and other assets you no longer own (again, assuming you don't need the documents for tax or other purposes) or clearly mark them as being sold or cashed in. Otherwise, loved ones could waste a lot of time and effort researching these mystery accounts when there is no money or property to be claimed.

 On the other hand, people do lose or forget about money or property. That's why it's important to keep records of your finances, note which accounts have been closed or cashed in, and make sure your financial institutions and others who owe you money have your current address.

 In most cases, after a certain number of years of being "unclaimed," assets are transferred to the state government, where they still can be claimed by the rightful owners. You also can begin a search for assets of any sort that have been sent to a state by going to the Web site of the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (www.unclaimed.org).

 Beware of frauds involving companies offering to "find" your unclaimed property. Some companies may charge fees up-front based on misleading claims or for services you could easily perform on your own.

 Update your will and other legal documents: Who will inherit your property when you die? Who else should have access to checking accounts to pay bills if you're hospitalized? What kind of medical treatments do you want to receive or avoid if you become critically ill? Your answers to these questions may require actions involving important legal documents and how you set up various bank accounts.

 Some matters may be handled as part of your will. Others may involve having or updating a "durable power of attorney" (authorizing someone to handle your finances or other personal matters if you become mentally or physically incapacitated), a "living will" or a "health care power of attorney” (designating a family member to make decisions about medical treatment). Having these health-related directives can prevent unwanted and potentially costly medical procedures. You may want to hire an attorney specializing in elder law or estate planning.

Fall 2006

Avoiding Costly Banking Mistakes (Winter 2006)
To err is human...and sometimes it can be expensive. That's the case for many consumers who have to pay fees and penalties because of mistakes they've made when using their checking account, credit card or other banking services.

Not checking up on your checking account
Many people write checks and use their debit card without paying attention to their account balance. The results can be costly and may include fees from $20 to $35 for each "bounced" check you write when you don't have enough money in your account. Similar fees can be imposed if you overdraw your account using your debit card at the ATM. There may also be fees if your checking account goes below a required minimum balance. And, if you fail to spot fraudulent transactions, fixing those can be costly and time consuming.

 Your lack of attention could make a bad situation worse if fees are assessed for several days or even months. "Account holders can get very frustrated when they suddenly find out that multiple checks and payments have been returned, and a fee has been assessed for each one," said Eloy Villafranca, a Community Affairs Officer with the FDIC. Villafranca recalled a situation involving a consumer who "was confident that her bank statements were correct so she didn't open them for six months." Unfortunately for her, a recurring, electronic payment she thought had been stopped continued to be charged and her account balance was lower than she thought. "As she wrote checks month after month," Villafranca explained, "she was being hit with charges for insufficient funds."

 Be aware that if bounced checks are not repaid in a timely fashion they may become part of your record. That could make it difficult to get a merchant to accept your checks. And if your account is closed by the bank because of repeated problems with insufficient funds that you do not repay, you may have difficulty opening a new account elsewhere.

How can you avoid unnecessary costs? 

*  Keep your check register up to date. Deduct for all withdrawals — not only for checks but also for ATM transactions, bank fees and debit card purchases. Do not rely on your ATM receipt for balance information because it may not reflect outstanding checks or debit card transactions.

* Promptly compare your check register with your bank statement to look for errors or unauthorized transactions. Open and review your monthly statement as soon as it arrives in the mail or check your account information more frequently online or by telephone. (Note: The federal Electronic Fund Transfer Act protects you against billing errors and unauthorized transactions by debit card and other electronic payment methods, but you must notify your bank within 60 days of the mailing of the account statement on which the transaction appears.)

* Take additional precautions to avoid fees for insufficient funds. For instance, make sure you have enough money in your account before you write a big check, use your debit card or arrange for an automatic payment. Also remember that, under federal rules that allow banking institutions to put a temporary "hold" on certain deposits, you may have to wait from one to five business days (in most situations) before you can withdraw funds deposited into your account, and longer in other circumstances (such as deposits over $5,000 or if your account has been repeatedly overdrawn).

* Consider fees when opening a bank account. Fees can significantly reduce, if not wipe out, your earnings. Examples include monthly fees for going below a minimum balance, monthly or quarterly "inactivity" fees if you've had no deposits or withdrawals for a certain time period, and annual service charges on Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).

 Article Source: FDIC Consumers News  

GLWB: Guaranteed Income For Life & You Don’t Lose Control (Spring 2007)

One of the advantages of an annuity is unlike any other financial instrument it can guarantee an income for as long as you live. It is the only instrument that promises if you chose to annuitize for life you will not outlive your money. However, there is a downside because if you annuitize you lose control of your principal.

You could also try to live on the interest being produced and leave the principal intact, but what if interest rates are around 3% and you need 6% to get by on? Well, you could withdraw 6% a year and hope that future interest rates are higher, but what if they aren’t? You could run out of income before you run out of time. 

Receive 6% and still retain control of your principal 

The age-old choice has always been take a guaranteed income and say goodbye to your principal, or “self-insure” your income and hope the income lasts as long as you do. But today you can find fixed annuities that will guarantee an income for as long as you live AND you still have access to your principal with a special rider to an annuity policy called a Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefit or GLWB. 

The GLWB assures you of a guaranteed withdrawal level, usually based on your age, that stays the same as long as you live. For example, if you are 70 or over it might guarantee that you can withdraw 6% of your original premium for as long as you live. What if you don’t ever earn 6% and your original premium is used up over the years? The insurance company takes over the burden and continues to pay 6% for as long as you live. Your heirs get the balance, not the insurance company 

What happens if you die? Your beneficiary gets whatever is left – the remaining balance calculated after adding in the interest you earned and subtracting the money you withdrew. Again, it’s based on the remaining balance calculated after adding in the interest you earned and subtracting the money you withdrew (and less any policy surrender penalties that might apply). 

Do you have to start withdrawing interest immediately? You never have to withdraw interest at all if you don’t want to, nor do you have to take the full permitted withdrawal if you don’t want to. If you don’t need the withdrawal the money remains in your account. 

Can the income lasts as long as my spouse lives too? Yes, there are annuities out there that will guarantee the withdrawal rate for as long as the surviving spouse lives. 

What’s the catch? Some fixed annuities charge up to 40 basis points (0.40%) for the GLWB protection. However, there are a couple insurers that have no explicit charge, the benefit is simply included in the annuity. A fixed annuity is already a safe money place offering minimum guarantees, the GLWB is simply an additional level of safety that allows the consumer to stay in control of their money. 

Make no mistake, if you annuitize for life you will receive a higher income than you would get from a GLWB. But if your goal is to guarantee both an income and control of your money the GLWB can make sense.

Annuities – How Much Is Too Much? (Summer 2007)

I have recently been asked by several people what percentage of a consumer’s assets should be in annuities. Is there a percentage that is too high or too low? Does the correct percentage vary by age? Should it be higher or lower depending on your total assets?

My answer to them has been that I don’t know, but I think a few people believe that by saying this I’m either trying to be politically neutral or simply afraid to take a stance. Frankly, I wish it were either of these things because then at least I would know what was correct even if I didn’t share my opinion, but the reality is I don’t believe you can plug some factoids into some model and figure out what percentage of an individual’s assets should be in annuities, because it isn’t simply an economic decision.

Is putting 60% of a consumer’s asset in annuities too little? Is 1% too much?

Should a person have no more than 60% of their total assets in annuities? Possibly, if their risk tolerance was low and they might need, say, an additional 6% of the annuity value to meet possibly liquidity needs (most fixed annuities offer 10% annual withdrawal without penalties assessed).

What about putting 90% of the money in annuities? If a consumer had a million dollars, a strong pension, and an overriding goal of leaving at least $900,000 to their family the annuities could protect the legacy from market risk and still provide access to a lot of penalty-free cash.

Is 1% too much? It could be if all of the assets might be needed without the year, or if the consumer has such a bugaboo about liquidity constraints that they only buy airline tickets while boarding the plane.

It comes down to how much needs to be safe and the liquidity needs of the consumer

I view a fixed annuity as a safe money place protecting principal and credited interest from market risk. I believe the first question a consumer needs to answer is how much of their money should be in safe money places and how much in risk money places, and I believe the answer comes down to how the consumer feels about risk of loss. For me, that’s a personal question and the “correct” answer will differ from person to person.

Let’s say a consumer does decide that 50% of their money should be in safe money places, how much of that should be in fixed annuities? That would depend primarily on liquidity needs. Often – but definitely not always – safe money instruments with longer penalties pay higher yields than those without penalties. The reason why is usually because the issuer knows they have the money to work with a little longer so they can afford to pay a little more interest. Again, this is not always true. For example, today a Series EE bond is paying 3.4% and you can find money market accounts yielding well over 4%, even though the liquidity penalty on a savings bond lasts 5 years and there is no penalty on the money market.

Fixed annuities have liquidity penalties that typically range from 1 to 15 years. If you think you would need all of the money in 5 years, it wouldn’t make sense to buy an annuity with 10 years of penalties. But what if the odds were you wouldn’t need the money in 5 years or even 20 years? Then the annuity might be the best place for a chuck of the safe money. The questions that need to be answered are how does the consumer feel about market risk and what are the liquidity needs of the consumer. The “correct” answer will vary from consumer to consumer.  

Savings Bonds Now Have 20 Year Surrender Penalties (Fall 2007)

Series EE Savings bonds offer tax-deferred growth, a fixed long-term interest rate, and minimum guarantees. If you want your money you can always cash in the bonds – the rules state you can’t touch the bonds for one year and you will pay a surrender penalty for the first 5 years. But in reality the penalty period on a new Series EE Savings Bond lasts two decades.

Series EE Bonds guarantee to at least double in value in 20 years and this works out to an effective annual yield of 3.5%. What the minimum guarantee says is if you buy a savings bond for $5,000 today you are guaranteed to get back $10,000 if you wait 20 years. 

But the current long-term fixed rate for Series EE bonds purchased between now and next May is 3%. At 3% interest your $5,000 would grow to $9,031 in 20 years. Now, if you wait the full 20 years the Treasury will kick in an extra $969 to cover the $10,000 minimum guarantee, but if you cash in that savings bond even one day early – on the 364^th day of the 19^th year – you only get $9,031. In reality, the savings bond has an original basis surrender charge of 19% if you cash out in the 19^th year! 

There are better places to keep money than in Series EE Savings Bonds.

Potentially Avoid Probate  (Winter 2007)

One of the most tremendous benefits of an annuity is its ability to avoid probate, which is wonderful because probate court costs and attorney’s fees have the potential to erode the assets in an estate. An annuity death benefit, paid to the designated beneficiary, does not have to be distributed by a probate judge. Rather, the beneficiary signs the insurance company death claim form which directs the insurance carrier to pay the death benefits either in lump sum or periodic payments. The carrier then issues the check directly to the beneficiary thereby avoiding probate.

Why Avoid Probate?  
The estate assets can be split between two categories: probate and non-probate assets. Probate assets are those subject to the court’s distribution rules. When determining costs and fees associated with probate, the court adds up the value of the probate estate and then claims a percentage of that value as a fee.  (The exact percentage is set by state law.) Meaning, if the court had to distribute an asset worth $300,000, its costs and the attorney’s fees will be a percentage of that $300,000. Items which the court does not have to distribute, such as annuity death benefit proceeds, should not considered when calculating the courts costs and fees.

Annuity death benefits paid to a designated beneficiary (not the estate) are not subject to the court’s distribution rules. This is what is meant by the often heard phrase “annuities avoid probate.”

Avoid The “Name Estate” Mistake  
After years of making this unconditional statement, the industry began choosing its words more carefully because the annuity death benefits will be subject to probate proceedings if the designated beneficiary is the decedent’s estate. Naming the estate as beneficiary pulls death benefits back into the probate process and becomes an extremely costly mistake for death benefits of both annuities and life insurance.

It is extremely alarming to learn the number of probate proceedings which incorrectly include the value of annuity death benefits when calculating court costs and attorney fees. To determine whether your state probate courts are guilty of this abusive practice, check the state probate forms. Some states clearly distinguish between probate and non-probate assets, but other jurisdictions have forms which blur the lines and create inconsistent outcomes.

With an annuity the insurance company takes care of distributing the death benefit to the designated beneficiary without any assistance from the court or the probate attorney. Naming beneficiaries, instead of the estate, will clarify the process for handling annuity death benefits and give the consumer true peace of mind.

Reprinted by permission of Gorilla Compliance, LLC Copyright Danette Kennedy