Financial planning

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.

Here's the greatest challenge to retirement planning: You may live a very, very long time.

Confidence is Americans’ biggest asset for future economic growth, James Paulsen, chief investment strategist with Wells Capital Management, told an audience last week at the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries’ 401(k) Summit.

Most Americans still aren't saving anywhere near enough money to afford the dignified retirement they all claim is so important to them. Even worse, most don't have any idea exactly how much they'll need if they were to begin saving today for their golden years.

U.S. investors have warmed to exchange-traded funds in a big way over the past five years and their growing familiarity with the expanding variety of products available helped pushed the total value of U.S.

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.

Variable annuities with guaranteed living benefit riders surged up 78% in the past two years to more than $521 billion in the fourth quarter of this year, according to a new LIMRA report charting the sales prowess of more than 95% of the variable annuity sector.

Insurance companies and investment firms offering retirement services to large and small employers are learning that attention to detail, an improved communication with the plan sponsors and, indirectly, plan participants can dramatically improve their customer retention and satisfaction rates.

Our nation's retirement system is a hot topic. In addition to frequent surveys finding that Americans are ill-prepared and worried about retirement, there are statehouse disputes about whether public pensions are too fat.

“How can you do that to your kids?” That’s the question Sacramento’s Sarah Cook hears all the time. And rather than making her feel embarrassed or guilty, she revels in the scorn.

New research from LIMRA finds that total individual annuity sales rose 6% during the fourth quarter of 2010 as compared to the same period last year to reach $57.6 billion.

Assets in 529 college savings plans have grown 56% in the past 24 months, beating industry estimates by 30%, according research by Financial Research Corp.

Thirty-four percent of the 3,171 adults that The Harris Poll surveyed in February expect the economy to improve in the coming year, 42% expect it to stay the same and 25% think it could get worse.

Women are not only becoming more responsible for the finances in their own homes, but they are passing on their knowledge to their own parents.

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.”

A MassMutual Retirement released a study that found women put their retirement assets in target-date options twice as often as risk-based options in the fourth quarter of 2010, while men were just as likely to use a target-date fund as they were a risk-based one.

M&T Bank recently released the results of a study that found that close to 80% of those who took part in a phone survey have little-to-no debt or are "comfortable" with their debt level.

Sales of annuities through banks ended the year with a promising lift, specifically for variable business.

Employees as a whole made significant improvements to their finances in 2010, despite a tepid economic recovery and sluggish rebound of job and real estate markets, according to a new study.

About 40 years ago, they were told to cut their hair and find a real job. Today, this same massive segment of the American population, better known as baby boomers, is getting another ultimatum: stop spending so much money and work even longer at that real job.