April 6, 2018 – With today’s close of the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending the day down 572.46 points (2.34%), some market forecasters are speculating that we may, after a prolonged run up of equity values, finally be dipping our toes into bearish waters. Of course, it’s always important to take these forecasts with a…
December 15, 2017 – Sometimes Christmas magic arrives unexpectedly. Take this Christmas card I just received from a client our firm helped nearly two years ago: “Dan, Not sure if you remember us or not. However, just wanted to say THANK YOU for everything. Since our last meeting, we have purchased a house in (redacted),…
November 18, 2017 – Having helped countless individuals who prevailed with claims of sexual misconduct against their perpetrators deal with the financial aftermath of their civil settlements and judgments, I wish I could say I am surprised by all these recent allegations. I am not. I’ve met the plaintiffs who prevailed against their transgressor priests,…
August 31, 2017 – Ever since the global financial near-apocalypse of 2009 caused everybody everywhere to rethink everything we thought we knew about money, saving, the market, investing, et cetera, I’ve noticed a pattern here in America. If you’ve been paying attention, you probably noticed it, too. Once a year or more, we hear “they”…
August 21, 2017 – A lot of people pretend to know a lot about retirement income planning. But few are truly as knowledgeable on the subject as Dr. Wade Pfau, Professor of Retirement Income at The American College and retirement researcher extraordinaire. Not only does he analyze retirement alternatives with the precision of a Swiss…
Berkshire Hathaway’s 2017 Annual Meeting Excerpt Warren Buffett Knows (and Likes) Structured Settlements May 22, 2017 – Earlier this month, attendees of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.’s Annual Meeting witnessed Chairman and principal shareholder Warren Buffett respond to a question about the company’s structured settlement holdings. You can watch the four minute excerpt of this exchange…
April 20, 2017 – If you’ve had money in an actively managed large cap fund in the United States for the past five years, there’s an 88.40% chance your manager underperformed and you would have been better off in a simple, low expense S&P 500 indexed fund instead. Would you board an airplane that only…
April 18, 2017 – Earlier this month during National Retirement Planning Week, the California Department of Insurance issued a Press Release urging Californians to “plan for retirement and carefully consider annuities.” This statement serves as a timely reminder that annuities offer many benefits that simply cannot be matched by traditional retirement investing approaches and often go…
February 16, 2017 – Proud to announce the recent publication of “A Good Fit,” an article I co-authored for Workers’ Compensation (WC), a quarterly periodical of CLM Publishing. Subtitled “Structured settlements and MSA arrangements are complementary claims resolution tools,” the article highlights the laws surrounding the Medicare Secondary Payer Act and gives examples of how…
January 23, 2017 – As a post-settlement income planning specialist for more than 25 years, I have countless examples of situations where clients anticipating large sums of money improved their lives greatly by choosing to allocate some of their settlement proceeds toward a structured settlement arrangement. If properly implemented, structured settlements pay future income that…