Temma Ehrenfeld

Americans are expecting to retire later and work throughout it, according to a study sponsored by SunAmerica Financial Group in collaboration with Age Wave.

Will the new health plan law make health coverage more expensive for your firm or staff? The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a report this week saying that for companies with fewer than 50 workers, costs should drop.

TIAA-CREF is currently selecting advisers for its own network, which will launch over the next six months and go nationwide early next year. For participants in TIAA-CREF retirement plans, the network will be a pre-screened group of planners who can provide advice on specific plans that meet fiduciary standards.

Contributions from employers to workers’ account-based health plans have dropped for the last two years, the Employee Benefit Research Institute reports.

Employees improved all areas of their personal finances last year, according to a study by El Segundo, Calif.-based Financial Finesse, but many are concerned they haven't saved enough to retire.

Usually, when unemployment drops, the number of working Americans increases. But this time around, that hasn’t been true, notes Mark Pawlak, at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

Although they have little trust in financial advisers, young American investors feel they are well-educated about handling their own budgets and are optimistic about the future.

Only 10% of Americans with $5 million to $25 million in investable assets described themselves as “very wealthy” in a recent survey by Spectrem Group, and 28% considered their wealth “moderate.”

Many people who retired in 2000 thought they were in great shape: over the last 20 years, stocks returned 17.8% on average.

Assets held in domestic exchange-traded funds reached a record $995 billion at the end of last year.

Gen-Y Americans showed notable caution regarding their personal finances, according to the Western Union Payments Money Mindset survey.

After three years of cautious spending and paying down debt, American households have significantly improved their balance sheets. Yet consumer confidence slipped in December as more people worried about the job outlook.

Twenty-three percent of middle-class IRA remained undecided in October about converting to an IRA, according to a study by First Command, a financial-education firm.

The likelier an event, the less profitable it is to insure. So when MetLife backed out of selling long-term care insurance, it sent a signal that the risk of needing expensive medical care in old age has increased.

College savings funds have slashed fees this year, Morningstar reports, making them worth another look. Nebraska's College Savings Plan and plans run by Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, and Vanguard all cut fees this year.

Surprisingly, most Americans showed understanding of diversification, asset allocation and dollar-cost averaging, while flunking basic questions about other financial concepts in a survey for Northwestern Mutual. This discrepancy is consistent with findings in a 2006 study.