We would love to hear from you. Click on the ‘Contact Us’ link to the right and choose your favorite way to reach-out!

wscdsdc

media/speaking contact

Jamie Johnson

business contact

Victoria Peterson

Contact Us

855.ask.wink

Close [x]
pattern

Industry News

Categories

  • Industry Articles (21,155)
  • Industry Conferences (2)
  • Industry Job Openings (35)
  • Moore on the Market (414)
  • Negative Media (144)
  • Positive Media (73)
  • Sheryl's Articles (800)
  • Wink's Articles (353)
  • Wink's Inside Story (274)
  • Wink's Press Releases (123)
  • Blog Archives

  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • August 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • November 2008
  • September 2008
  • May 2008
  • February 2008
  • August 2006
  • Advisors Must Slow Down To Tell Consumers About IRA Importance

    March 20, 2014 by Cyril Tuohy

    Advisor Dan Keady’s favorite four-letter word is “slow,” as in “slow down.” Financial advisors, he said, need to downshift when talking about individual retirement accounts (IRAs), tax-advantaged accounts like Roth IRAs, and annuity investments for retirement.

    “We as advisors have been in the business for so many years,” he said. “We hear the word IRA and we have a misconception that people understand the value of IRAs, Roth IRAs and the 401(k).”

    Advisors need to stop right there, he said. For some investors, laboring over the differences among the assorted flavors of IRAs is too much. Launching into percentage talk is deadly, sure to turn into a conversation killer.

    Keady, a certified financial planner, says he and his colleagues need to put themselves in the mind of the investing public and think about where their clients’ minds are.

    For example, people’s minds are on restaurant reservations more often than on IRAs, according to a recent TIAA-CREF survey. Americans also admit they spend more time thinking about buying a flat-screen TV or tablet computer than they do planning an IRA investment, the survey found. The survey, conducted Feb. 13 to 16, polled 1,008 adults ages 18 or older.

    The news must come as a disappointment to advisors, particularly with 47 percent of respondents saying they would consider an individual retirement account as part of their retirement strategy, down 10 percentage points from 2013.

    But the findings are not exactly new. Market research companies regularly issue comparison surveys about how shoppers spend more time trying to bargain down a retail sales clerk on a $20 pair of fuzzy dice than pausing before moving $5,000 into a foreign real estate venture or an unsuitable investment fund.

    We can cut investors some slack, however. Certainly, many people answering the survey are also contributing to an employer-sponsored 401(k). Equating IRA disinterest, therefore, doesn’t mean investors are not interested in or saving for retirement.

    Still, the survey highlights how far removed the academic, economic and legislative discussions have drifted from the everyday concerns of taxpayers and working Americans. Thirty years ago, opening an individual retirement account entitled the investor to a $2,000 tax credit.

    “Everyone understood,” Keady said in an interview with InsuranceNewsNet. “Today I always keep on my desk a clipboard with the individual retirement account phase out and the deduction for income levels.”

    Have investors dropped IRA investing simply because it has become too complicated? Aren’t investors following the cardinal rule, which is to stay away from investing in what you do not understand?

    IRA investing is more complicated than it was, but investors also have more options, so you’ll have to excuse investors if they don’t show quite enough love for IRAs. Investors only have so much to go around.

    It’s hard to beat the convenience of a 401(k) or 403(b) offered through an employer-sponsored retirement plan. If workers can set aside a percentage of income through payroll deductions — the equivalent of retirement autopilot — to fund their retirement, why bother with putting still more aside through an IRA?

    Investors age 49 or younger can put aside $5,500 in an IRA between now and April 15 to contribute to the 2013 calendar year. Investors 50 or older can set aside $6,500.

    Advisors need to be “setting the table” properly about the value of IRAs in all its incarnations, Keady also said. Think about ads for Apple iPad tablet computers. The ads stress how the machines make life easier, not about processor firepower and add-on features.

    “We need to make it easier,” he said. “We need to point to the value of IRAs.” Advisors, he also said, need to think to themselves, “‘I’m going to slow down.’”

    Keady said advisors would do well to bypass getting bogged down in tax code details and instead refer to Internet-based retirement calculators that can cut through the contribution rules and convey the importance and effectiveness of IRAs.

    “The advisor really needs to be in a spot to walk people through but not drown them in details,” Keady said. “That’s where the calculators really come in. It cuts through all that detail. What can the client do and then work with them to actually get it done?”

    Originally Posted at InsuranceNewsNet on March 20, 2014 by Cyril Tuohy.

    Categories: Industry Articles
    currency