I recently read an online article about the U.K.’s Baby Boomers and their children. It seems the U.K. has concocted several new categories of acronyms and neologisms (I had to look this up. It means a word that is in common use, but hasn’t been accepted into mainstream language yet). Yuckies are Young Unwittingly Costly Kids: 20-somethings who live at home or are causing undue financial strain on their parents. The article quoted several surveys showing that Yuckie parents have drained as much as one-fifth of their savings and that one-third have remortgaged their homes. Kipper is the U.K. term for boomerang kids and stands for Kids in Parents’ Pockets.

These are just different name with the same meaning: kids that are eroding their parents’ retirement savings. So the Boomers in the U.K. are doing the same as their U.S. counterparts: Spending my Kid’s Inheritance, or as they say in the U.K., SKIing.

The SKIing phenomenon has migrated to Canada and showed up in The Province with the article “Crack That Nest Egg,” by Lorraine Mallinder of the Financial Post. According to the article, increased longevity and the recent economic downturn make it even less likely that there will be anything left for the kids. These trends are also mirrored in the United States.

If you or your kids fall into these categories, perhaps you should rethink your planning and insurance needs. Sit down with your agent or financial advisor to ensure that you have made the right decisions for you personal situation.

Do you know that your life insurance agent gets paid when she helps you purchase a life insurance policy? And so does a financial planner, if you’ve chosen to go that route, instead. Sounds fair: professionals being paid for offering their expertise to help you shape a better future. It happens all the time across many professions from real estate to medicine.

That may be set to change, at least for life insurance agents.

Recently, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) introduced financial-services reform legislation in Congress. Both the House and Senate bills refer to the “harmonization” of financial advice under something called the fiduciary standard. This “fiduciary” standard has largely been pushed by certified financial planners as the only standard that can ensure the American public is receiving objective advice under a “duty to act, primarily for the client’s benefit in matters connected with the undertaking and not for the fiduciary’s own personal gain.”

The logical extension of this change could result in the SEC outlawing commissions as an acceptable form of compensation. The assumption would be that commission motivation is, de facto, proof of the agent not acting “primarily for the client’s benefit.” That means if a life insurance agent helped you buy your policy, he would not be able to get paid the way he’s been paid in the past, as his means of payment is a commission on the sale of the policy.

Is this really in the best interest of the American public? Well, the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting tells us that studies show that less than 17% of fee-based plans are ever implemented. Fee-based planners get their fee for a plan, but they are not obligated to make sure it’s put into action. Is that in the client’s best interest?

If a fee-based planner charged $150 an hour for three hours to analyze a client’s life-insurance needs and suggested a $500,000 term insurance policy that has a $300 annual premium, is the client better served by paying $750 in fees and premiums instead of just the $300 premium that he would pay if he got that advice from an agent?

Why is a life insurance agent, who may devote hours of work with no assurance of compensation, automatically assumed to be less faithful in his “duty to act primarily for the client’s benefit” than the fee-based planner who won’t begin work until the client has signed an agreement and paid a fee?

John F. Kennedy once said: “In a very real sense, insurance sets standards of performance and responsibility for all American business. Surely Americans derive their image of business most often from the relationships they establish with their insurance agents. The varied services performed by American insurance can do much to carry forward our traditions of freedom.”

Most insurance professionals I know have no problem with the idea of fee-based planners getting paid by fees. But fee-based planners, evidently, want to eliminate the practice of insurance professionals being paid by commissions.

Maybe Rep. Frank and Sen. Teddy Kennedy’s best friend in the Senate, Sen. Dodd, should look again at what President Kennedy said before they hit the wrong notes on “harmonization.”

I published a blog the other day discussing the potential trillion-dollar shortfall in the funding of state-employee pension plans. Here we have another study showing people will need to work longer to fund their health and pension benefits.

The Employee Benefit Research Institute published a study recently showing that Americans age 55 and older are staying in the workforce longer as they are faced with higher health costs and economic losses. For those age 55 to 64, which EBRI labels the “near elderly,” this increase is due almost exclusively to the more women staying in the workforce. However, among those age 65 and older, labeled the “elderly,” the labor force is increasing for both men and women.

Workers are facing more responsibility in paying for their retirement expenses typically through self-funded 401k plans, and retiree health insurance is becoming increasingly scarce. As a result, the study says that workers today have greater incentives to stay in the workforce to accumulate additional assets in defined contribution plans and to have access to employer-based health insurance coverage. The alternative is to tap into their savings to pay for their expenses.

The study, which is based on U.S. Census Bureau data, shows that private-sector Americans, age 55 or older, who were in the labor force declined from 34.6 percent 1975 to 29.4 percent in 1993. However, since 1993, the labor-force participation rate has steadily increased, reaching 39.4 percent in 2008.

The study also shows that education is a strong determinant in an individual’s continued participation in the workforce at older ages. Individuals with higher levels of education are significantly more likely to stay in the labor force than those with the lower levels of education.

The upward trend is not surprising and will likely continue because of workers’ needs to access employer-based health insurance and for more earning years to accumulate assets. This also drives home the point that it is not too late to sit down with your agent or other financial professionals to determine a plan of action and set obtainable goals for a deferred retirement. If you have not done this, pick up the phone and do so now. If you wait too long, some planning options may no longer be available.

You work for your state or municipal government. Your pension is safe, secure and guaranteed. Think again!

Mark Scolforo of the Associated Press published the article “Study: States Must Fill $1 Trillion Pension Gap,” which indicates that states may be forced to reduce benefits, raise taxes or cut government services to deal with this staggering funding shortfall in their public-sector retirement benefits, this based on a survey from the Pew Center on the States.

The gap may even be even larger than $1 trillion, as the study didn’t factor in the extent of investment losses in late 2008, nor did it include many city, county and municipal pension plans, which are thought to have similar problems with underfunding.

What does this mean to you? It means you need to talk with your agent or financial professional and plan for your retirement years now! What you receive in pension benefits may be less than you expect. Prepare for the unexpected with proper planning. Ask how life insurance, annuities and long-term care insurance can be used to make your retirement safe and secure with guarantees.

It doesn’t surprise me that Ron Lieber of The New York Times used this headline recently for his article about disability: “The Odds of a Disability Are Themselves Odd.” He clearly shows the confusion that surrounds your chances of becoming disabled.

But is the issue really about your odds of becoming disabled? Or is it the fact that you don’t know if you will be the one to become disabled or not? Because of that uncertainty, you need to make sure that if anything were to happen that you’ve empowered yourself with the choice and control you want.

Let me explain. Not only am I a financial advisor who sells disability insurance, I am someone who suffered a disabling accident. It was my group and individual disability insurance plans that gave me choices and control over my life. Because I had income protection plans, I was able focus on recovery and rehabilitation, I could ask for a second opinion, and I could choose in-home care. Because I had that income, I didn’t have to sell my assets and move in with my parents, and I could maintain my lifestyle. In essence, disability insurance protected my paycheck by ensuring that I would continue to receive an income even if I was unable to work.

As I was sitting on that dock before my water skiing accident—young, healthy and athletic, my odds of becoming disabled might have been 80% or 52% or 10%. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that moments later it was 100%.

As an industry, we need change the way we speak about our product. By doing so, we can make it easier to have a conversation with people about how they can protect their incomes and preserve their lifestyle from the unexpected. We can show that disability insurance helps people protect their paychecks to pay their bills, pay for rehabilitation, keep their businesses running, safeguard their assets and preserve their retirement dreams.

It’s not about disability at all. Instead, it’s about giving people the ability to have choices and to be in control of their financial lives.

As a consumer, I urge you to educate yourself and work with a trusted advisor with disability insurance expertise (read 5 Tips for Finding the Right Advisor) so you can make an informed decision on the value of protecting your paycheck. There’s nothing “odd” about that—just intelligent planning, and taking personal responsibility. To help get you started, visit the section on LIFE’s website dedicated to disability insurance.