November 2009
"... the 401(k) is a lousy idea, a financial flop, a rotten repository for our retirement reserves."
-- Stephen Gandel, author of "Why it's time to retire the 401(k)," the cover article in the Oct. 19 issue of TIME magazine.
29% - Amount the median investor in 401(k)s and similar investments lost in 2008.
Source: Vanguard
31% - Amount the average 401(k) balance fell from the end of 2007 to the end of March 2009.
Source: Fidelity
$320,000 - Amount the average 55-to-64-year-old should have in a 401(k) balance.
$78,000 - Actual amount the average 55-to-64-year-old had in a 401(k) at the end of 2007 (before the meltdown).
Source: Boston College Center for Retirement Research
44% - of all Americans are in danger of going broke in their postwork years.
Source: Boston College Center for Retirement Research
From the Archives - November 1948
Editor's note: The following excerpts are from the November 1948 issue of Life Insurance Selling
In Your Hands Lies the Future of America
By Wendel F. Hanselman, Union Central Life Insurance Company, Cincinnati
I have told you the story of a great financier who recommends that every man who really wants to get ahead in the world today ought to put half his income into life insurance. What a vast difference between his goal for America and the less than 3 per cent that we have attained so far.
Are we near the saturation point of our market? If we ever reach 50 per cent of the goal this man has recommended, life insurance in force in this country will be more than eight times as great as the amount now in force. If the people of the country put -- not half -- but just one-quarter of their income into life insurance saving, the total in force would be far more than a trillion dollars.
In more than 100 years, we have traveled less than one-eighth of the way toward reaching the saturation point in our market. As we stand at the threshold of the third billion dollars, let's remember that the greatness of America is build on a formula which as two factors -- production and thrift. It is our responsibility to contribute to the thrift factor through the vast program of educating our American public in the real vales of life insurance.
Points That Help You Sell
The chap who can't pay just isn't a prospect. But how can you tell whether he can pay or not? Just ask him! Say, "Can you save $10 a month?" If his answer is a convincing "No," take up as little time as possible in friendly conversation, and then go on to your next prospect.
Some Sales Procedures Used by Successful Insurance Men
By A. deL. Panet, CLU, The Great-West Life Assurance Company, Ottawa, Ontario
Most men say they want to succeed. But how badly they want to can be determined by how hard they are willing to work for this success.
The man who can't quite see getting up an hour earlier in the mornings, so that he'll have extra time for planning his calls and reviewing his sales talks, doesn't really want to succeed. He just thinks he does. The man with a burning desire for success is easily spotted -- for he's the man who works night after night on his sales talk, getting it polished up to the point where it completely satisfies him and sells his prospects. He's the man who keeps going at top speed all day long, the man who's never too tied up to devote his evenings to interviewing prospective clients.
He's the man who wants to succeed so badly that he's more than willing to do the things necessary to attain success. And he's the man who will succeed.
