Monday, June 16, 2008
Where are the good insurance writers?
I still haven't found a mass market book on insurance planning that's worth a damn. Even great investment types routinely and totally blow it when discussing insurance. Or, more commonly, they'll devote 15 chapters to the finer points of ekeing out an extra 50 basis points on an investment portfolio and one chapter on insurance planning. Or they'll write as if we live in a tax vacuum, all small closely-held businesses have ready buyers upon the owners' death, nobody pays income taxes on pensions, nobody will pay an estate tax, and all investors who buy term and invest the difference will actually realize the 10% return projected in mutual funds (HA!). Or they'll write as if the taxation of insurance proceeds is subject to legislative risk while capital gains taxation of mutual funds and income taxation of assets drawn from retirement accounts are not.
More on this, to come ...at least while I can still write freely about this stuff.
Splash, out
Jason
More on this, to come ...at least while I can still write freely about this stuff.
Splash, out
Jason
Labels: insurance, investing, The media
Comments:
Not yet. I don't know enough... maybe in a few years.
I think I grasp a lot of things pretty well, but the devil, as they say, is in the details.
What's happening is that the popular finance types pretty much are selected from among the investing types, not the insurance types, because people think investing is sexy and exciting and fun, and plays well on TV.
Meanwhile, the insurance guys are the guys telling you to eat your vegetables.
What happens then is that the investing guys will devote chapters to insurance topics, without having put a lot of thought into it. But even holistic fee only financial planners will usually keep an insurance expert around. They just don't bring him out because they're afraid Bartleby the Scrivener will bore the crap out of them.
It's much more fun to talk investing and dreams and pie in the sky than it is to talk about protection.
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I think I grasp a lot of things pretty well, but the devil, as they say, is in the details.
What's happening is that the popular finance types pretty much are selected from among the investing types, not the insurance types, because people think investing is sexy and exciting and fun, and plays well on TV.
Meanwhile, the insurance guys are the guys telling you to eat your vegetables.
What happens then is that the investing guys will devote chapters to insurance topics, without having put a lot of thought into it. But even holistic fee only financial planners will usually keep an insurance expert around. They just don't bring him out because they're afraid Bartleby the Scrivener will bore the crap out of them.
It's much more fun to talk investing and dreams and pie in the sky than it is to talk about protection.
