Retirement

Employee financial education can in fact improve employee engagement with retirement benefits and help them do a better job preparing for the future.

Employers and their employees hold different perspectives on how to best achieve retirement preparedness through 401(k) plans, according to the results of two newly released studies from Schwab Retirement Plan Services. Taken together, the studies indicate that, despite efforts by employers to educate workers on the 401(k) offering, most workers are unengaged and financially unprepared for retirement.

A 65-year-old couple retiring in 2012 is estimated to need $240,000 to cover medical expenses throughout retirement, according to the latest retiree health care costs estimate calculated by Fidelity Investments. This represents a 4% increase from last year, when the estimate was $230,000.

A recent survey by TD Ameritrade uncovers how much financial trouble a fiancé will tolerate before calling off the wedding.

Nearly half of soon-to-be-retired, high-net-worth Americans say they are terrified of what health care costs may do to their retirement plans, according to a new survey.

Investment products are "overly complex," and investors are feeling "overwhelmed" by the slew investment choices available to them, according to the MFS Investing Sentiment Survey.

Financial advisers sometimes puzzle over how to effectively reach and serve black and Hispanic clients. A Vanguard study released recently suggests they can start by drilling home a simple message: emergency savings accounts are a must.

Women may have advanced academically and up the career ladder, but there is still a ways to go in terms of retirement readiness. A new study from ING Retirement Research Institute shows that on average, women have $41,000 less saved than men over the course of a lifetime. For women with children, that gap expands to $61,000.

Creating an adequate amount of income for individuals to live comfortably in retirement will require a combination of several income producing strategies, as well as knowing what constitutes realistic and "safe" withdrawal rates from retirement plans, according to a recent issue brief by the Institutional Retirement Income Council.

The Hartford's recent announcement to divest its retirement division has more to do about the economy and the parent's corporate direction, perhaps instigated by an activist investor, than it does about the quality of its retirement business.