ArticlesPage 24

  Last Updated: 2/2/2009 A new Supreme Court decision illustrates the importance of making sure your beneficiary designations are up-to-date. The Court has unanimously ruled that an employer must distribute a deceased employee’s retirement benefits to his ex-wife even though she had renounced the benefits in their divorce. Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont Sav. Read Full Article

  Last Updated: 2/26/2009 We all know we are supposed to do estate planning, but not all of us get around to it. (If you are among the many who haven’t gotten around to it, see our current home page survey.) So what happens if you don’t have a will when you die? Your estate Read Full Article

  Last Updated: 12/5/2008 Conseco Inc., a major long-term care insurer, has transferred more than 140,000 of its policies to an independent trust set up by Pennsylvania, putting the policyholders at risk. Conseco moved its Senior Health Insurance Co. long-term-care policies, which were underpriced, to a new state-supervised nonprofit trust, Senior Health Insurance Co. of Read Full Article

  Last Updated: 12/20/2008 The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has unveiled a one- to five-star rating system for nursing homes to help consumers evaluate a nursing home’s quality when selecting a facility. The ratings appear on the agency’s Nursing Home Compare Web site. A five-star designation means the facility ranks “much above Read Full Article

  Last Updated: 12/22/2008 Hugh Delehanty and Elinor Ginzler. Caring for Your Parents: The Complete Family Guide. AARP and Sterling Publishing, New York, NY. 2008. 238 pages. $10.36 from Amazon (click on book to order) As parents age, their adult children are often forced to take on an active caregiving role, which creates a new Read Full Article

  Last Updated: 2/26/2009 In the recent economic downturn, many homes have lost considerable value and stock portfolios have plummeted. If this is the case for you, do you need to change your will? What if your income and assets have increased significantly? If your finances have changed markedly since you wrote your will, you Read Full Article

  Last Updated: 1/5/2009 Congress has passed and President Bush has signed legislation that will temporarily suspend the penalty for seniors who fail to take the required minimum distribution from IRA and employer retirement accounts in 2009. But the penalty freeze, which is part of the Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act of 2008, does Read Full Article

A 55-year-old individual considering a basic level of long-term care insurance protection — a $100 daily benefit and three years of coverage — can expect to pay $723 a year if married or $1,060 if single, according to the 2009 Long-Term Care Insurance Price Index, an annual report from the American Association for Long-Term Care Read Full Article

Last Updated: 6/27/2008 With the strict new health care privacy rules now in force, it’s more important than ever that everyone consider creating an advance medical directive that specifically names those persons who are entitled to access to health care information about them. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which recently became effective, Read Full Article