(Answer) (Category) Investlist Faq-O-Matic :
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Wills, trusts, and charitable remainder trusts
    Some information on wills, trusts and charitable remainder trusts .

Auto Insurance : Liability coverage
    [Stuart Balfour] I've seen several kinds of mishaps with automobiles discussed in the last week, and most had unfortunate endings. Part of the cause was lack of proper insurance coverage. Here are the kinds, and what they mean to you:
    1. liability: state required 30/60, usual upper limits 250/500. The first number (in thousands) is per person, and the second per incident. Liability covers property damage and injury to others when you're at fault.
    2. collision: covers up to the replacement value of the car for collision damage when you're at fault (when somebody else is at fault, their insurance, if any, covers damage to your vehicle). If your car is older than 7-8 years, you probably don't want collision coverage - you self-insure more or less for the residual value of the car.
    3. uninsured motorist: covers damage and injury to you or your car or property when someone else is at fault, and they are uninsured.
    4. comprehensive: covers fire or storm damage (tree falls on car), burglary, theft, and other things that damage the car other than collision (does not cover mechanical breakdown, however - you need a warranty for that).
    5. umbrella: properly called "excess liability insurance", protects your assets against being sued. Umbrella usually covers not only your car, but also your home and property. For example, you might kill someone with your car, or take out the corner of a building and bring it down. Ordinary automobile liability insurance is insufficient to protect you against these marginal risks.

    Good insurance will include all of these coverages, and others as well (towing, rental vehicle, etc). If your driving record is good, and you drive a modest vehicle ($$$ as well as performance), good insurance isn't costly. My insurance has all of these coverages, my driving record is clear, I drive a Corvette, and insurance costs me $1700 per year, dropping about $100 per year as my car gets older, and I'm with the same insurance company longer. If my car were average cost, and not a performance vehicle, my insurance costs would be about half of what they are for full coverage. If you don't have full coverage auto insurance, you should get it as part of a comprehensive financial planning regimen.


How much money is needed for Retirement?
    [Stuart Balfour] Most financial planners guestimate that you'll need about 70% of terminal income per year throughout retirement. If you're to consume only the earnings, and not the principal, of the assets, then you'll need maybe 10-14 times terminal salary in assets. Let's see how that works.

    Suppose you retired today, and have a $100,000 salary. You'd need $70K in annual income. If we assume 5.33% yield and 3% growth (8.33% return), then you'd need (100/5.33) = 18.75 * $70K = $1.3M in assets. That's only 13 times terminal salary. 8.33% long term return is fairly conservative.

    I'd say that if you have 15 times terminal salary in assets, you're quite adequately covered.

    All of these figures will be substantially lower (as they are for most people of more limited means) if you allow for gradual consumption of principal over some actuarial lifetime. This is in fact a more typical case, and the mathematics are more complicated. In that case, you need a maximum of maybe 12 times terminal income, and 10 times terminal income might easily suffice for up to 20 years or so in retirement (age 85 - how many live longer than that?).

    Most of these scenarios assume some things: your mortgage is paid; your kids are independent; you're not chronically ill or disabled; you're not supporting parents or others; you generally live within your means.

                                                   Stuart
    

    Additionally, here is a primer on retirement planning. and a few retirement calculators, if you need to crunch your own numbers:
    http://money.cnn.com/retirement/
    http://www.soundmoney.org/toolbox/calculators/RetirementIncome.php
    http://www.usatoday.com/money/calculat/retirec.htm


Inheritance tax
    First, there is no tax to pass your estate to your spouse when you die. However, if your estate is passed to other people (including children), the first $650,000 is transferred tax-free but any amount over that limit is taxed.

Credit Fraud / Identity Theft
    To prevent credit fraud (someone using your credit history for their own purchases) or, worse yet, identity theft (where your entire identity is stolen, including credit cards, driver's license, etc.), set up a "Fraud Alert" on all three major credit reporting agencies, listed below. Refer the US government site for additional information. Also peruse the FTC site and check out the CNN identity theft Survival Guide and Privacyrights.

Credit reporting agencies
    The three major credit-reporting agencies in the US are:

Asset protection
    Q: "These stock options are great, but what if someone sues me?"
    The stock answer seems to be "get an excess liability (also called 'umbrella') insurance policy".  These cost about $500/year for $1M in coverage and usually require your auto insurance be increased to 250K/500K limits when you purchase the excess liability coverage.  More paranoid (or wealthy) individuals may want to investigate trusts and other mechanisms in addition to, or instead of, an excess liability insurance policy.

Credit Rating (FICO score)
    Your credit rating is maintained by the three major credit-reporting agencies in the US (Equifax, Esperian, Trans Union), listed above. Your credit rating is computed using a formula. The most common formula is one created by Fair, Issac & Company.  Their formula provides credit rating values between 850 (good) and 600 (poor).  Lower scores are quite poor and will cause significant problems in obtaining credit.

    Generally, the better your FICO score the better your interest rate for loans, and the more money you can loan.  FICO reports are available from myfico.com and many other places. The FICO score is calculated based on length of credit, amount of credit available, on-time payment history, and a variety of other factors.

    Some companies advertise that they can "improve" your FICO score. While mistakes in your credit report can be corrected (by contacting the appropriate credit reporting agency), nothing more can legally be done to improve your FICO score.


How to find out if a Bank is FDIC insured?
    Go to http://www3.fdic.gov/idasp/, click "Find an Institution", and enter the name of your bank.


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