The term collateral damage was originally used during warfare when a military target was struck.  Even when the attack was successful it often left behind peripheral harmful results – usually affecting nearby innocent civilians.  The phrase is now more broadly used to describe negative unintended...

Come gather ’round people/ Wherever you roam/ And admit that the waters/ Around you have grown . . . For the times they are a-changin’ For those long-enough-in-the-tooth to remember, it is hard to believe that Bob Dylan wrote and released these iconic lyrics more than half-a-century ago.  Beyond...

People of Planning – Trusts were used long before Wills!  They are still so important today that every insurance advisor should be skilled in a few definitions. Trust – A creator (or maker or grantor) puts legal title of his/her property in the name of a person (trustee) to hold and manage...

In the 2000 comedy flick Family Man, the investment guru played by Nicolas Cage is asked if he likes kids.  His response:  “On a case-by-case basis!” But when minors are to be a party to a life insurance policy we can’t be so selective. Every case is a potential problem and contracts must...

The poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde, once described a cynic as someone who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. A good friend of mine has sold residential real estate for years.  Describing some of her non-cynical clients, she tells many stories of long-time homeowners who struggle...

The circumstances surrounding the case weren’t unusual.  A single grandparent wanted to purchase coverage on his five year-old grandchild.  He loved his son and daughter-in-law, the parents of the proposed insured, but felt they might be tempted to access the cash values during tough times if they...

What’s the best way to attract and retain key people in the face of a government that does, and continues to do, all it can to proscribe or eliminate the advantages of selective benefits?  The non-discrimination and other limitations on qualified plans often make them ineffective for the purpose. Deferred...

It wasn’t too long after I turned my face from home and toward the world that I bumped into the reality of having to fend for myself at mealtime.  With few culinary skills and less patience I quickly adopted the philosophy that if something took longer to make that it did to eat, then the dish wouldn’t...

If you have read all three parts of The Bounty Trilogy then you are familiar with the often overlooked, but perhaps more compelling part of the tale.  Most are familiar with the mutiny aboard the H.M.S. Bounty and of the mutineers attempting to escape the long arm of British naval law by establishing...

A man in Clearwater, FL, claimed to have grown a grapefruit that looked exactly like an orange - except that it was bigger and yellow.  The attempt at comparison is understandable given other features characteristic of both. What If Clients: 1) Don’t have access to a qualified retirement plan, or 2)...