How to win using annuities in retirement + MORE Nov 11th

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Q:  We are in our sixties and still have a $310,000 mortgage. We are paying about $600 per month for life and disability insurance. Can this insurance be cancelled? We’d like to use these funds to help pay down our mortgage sooner.
— Retiring in debt, Vancouver 

Ayana Forward is a certified financial planner in Ottawa:  
You can cancel life insurance in writing at anytime, but I wouldn’t recommend that course of action unless you have or can obtain sufficient coverage elsewhere at a lower rate. Without knowing what other assets and coverages you currently have in place it would be difficult to advise you on your particular situation. Your current health status would also be a consideration when advising you on the best next steps. You can always shop around for a term policy that covers a period of time that matches the remaining amortization of your mortgage, which may end up being cheaper than what you are currently paying. I would also double check the conditions around the disability portion of your policy as most don’t payout past age 65, so you might be paying a high premium for something that could have little or no benefit to you…

PHILADELPHIA – The union representing 4,700 transit workers in Philadelphia has revealed details of a tentative agreement that ended a weeklong transit strike on Monday.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports (http://bit.ly/2enxwjR ) a Transportation Workers Union newsletter says members would receive 10.5 per cent raises over the next five years under the agreement.
Their health insurance payments would increase from 1 per cent of their pay to 2.5 per cent by 2019 and members would see a 12.8 per cent to 15.2 per cent increase in pension payments, depending on their length of employment.
No changes to break times or time between shifts for vehicle operators were included.
Members will vote on the deal next week.
SEPTA has said money in its preexisting 10-year budget plan would cover the new contract.
Both the union and SEPTA declined to comment.
The post SEPTA union workers to get pay bump under tentative deal appeared first on Canadian Business – Your Source For Business News.

The good news is most of us can expect to live longer. The bad news is that the decline of defined-benefit pensions, along with chronically low interest rates, makes it harder for us to avoid outliving our money.
For those without workplace defined-benefit pensions, annuities can offset that risk by acting as a form of longevity insurance. You hand over capital to an insurance company today in exchange for a guaranteed flow of income for as long as you live. In a real sense a DB pension, with its guaranteed payouts, is annuity-like. As are programs like the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) or Old Age Security (OAS).
Despite similar terminology, defined-contribution pensions, RRSPs, TFSAs, and non-registered savings are not real pensions, cautions Schulich School of Business finance professor Moshe Milevsky. While those vehicles will help out in retirement, the only way you can create a real guaranteed income for life is to annuitize, he explains in the second edition of Pensionize Your Nest Egg…