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After six decades running Berkshire Hathaway, the legendary investor Warren Buffett has officially stepped down as CEO.
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The legendary 95-year-old investor spent decades building his company into one of the world's largest and most powerful. Now Greg Abel is taking it over.
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Your life insurance monthly premium can start looking less and less appealing once you've retired. It's a scenario Dan Simon, a retirement planning adviser with Daniel A. White & Associates in Middletown, Del., has seen quite often, even with his own parents. "The cost of the insurance had risen to the point where it was getting unaffordable. They were wondering do we really need to keep this coverage now that the kids are all grown up?"
If you stop paying your premiums, you lose your life insurance coverage, and your heirs wouldn't get anything back for what you've paid in. If you cancel a policy that has cash value, a reserve of money built up in some types of life insurance, the insurer sends you a check for that amount, though it will be far less than the listed death benefit.
Over the past 20 years, a third option went mainstream: selling your policy to a company, a practice known as a life settlement, with the buyer getting the death benefit when you die.
SEE MORE Don't Fall for That Life Insurance Ad on TV
"It's kind of morbid when you think about it. A group buys boatloads of policies from people that have fallen on hard times and can no longer afford their insurance," profiting from the seller's death, says Simon. "In theory, they want you to die tomorrow. If you live another 20 years, it's a bad investment for them."
Selling a life insurance policy generally isn't a great deal for you either, and there are better alternatives worth exploring. Simon finds that people typically turn to selling a policy when they're desperate. Usually, it's because they've spent down their other retirement assets, or they might be dealing with high medical bills. "It's a measure of last resort, like taking a reverse mortgage. I rarely see them working out well for people, and they could en
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Too many young professionals are leaving Uncle Sam an enormous tax gratuity. How are they doing this? By not taking full advantage of the triple tax benefits of a health savings account. I've yet to meet anyone who wants to pay more taxes. Many do not mind paying their fair share, but they do not want to leave a tip.
SEE MORE ‘I Can't Retire - I Need Health Insurance'
An early to mid-career professional with a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) could be missing out on six figures of lifetime tax savings. With open enrollment for health insurance around the corner, it's time to understand and utilize the benefits of your HSA.
What Qualifies as a High-Deductible Plan?
For 2023 a high-deductible health plan is defined by the IRS as one with a deductible not less than $1,500 for self-only coverage or $3,000 for family coverage, and for which the annual out-of-pocket expenses do not exceed $7,500 for self-only coverage or $15,000 for family coverage. Healthy young professionals are prime candidates for an HDHP. That is because many of them need minimal medical care; they visit the doctor annually and have no or few drug prescriptions.
Because their medical expenses are low, money contributed to a health savings account can be used to generate significant tax savings while also building a large health care nest egg.
What Are the Triple Tax Benefits of HSAs?
Contributing to a health savings account provides a triple tax benefit:
First, anyone who
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