Estate planning is a complicated yet necessary task. Because of complex laws, misinformation online, and others’ scary stories, making mistakes unknowingly is easy. Unfortunately, that tasks your heirs with sorting out your unintentional mess after you’re gone.

Canadian wage earners are losing up to $3 billion in free money per year by not participating fully in their employers’ defined-contribution (DC) pension plans, per a recent report. Businesses are paying out only an estimated 40-50 percent of their available matching funds. Industry experts are studying this disappointing phenomenon so pension fund managers and employers can help more workers save for retirement. Consult an Alliance Financial advisor to set up or modify your organization’s group retirement plan.

Yesterday the Alliance Financial Group family took to the road for our annual mid-year planning session. We headed to Kingston, Ontario and visited the Empire Life Insurance company for a morning meeting and tour of the head office. Alliance has had a relationship with Empire Life since our company was started in 1982 helping to provide our clients with a complete array of Life Insurance and Investment products. Special thanks to Empire for being such great hosts and for all the hugs we received.

Many hard workers concentrate more on saving for far-off retirement than protecting today’s earnings. Your odds of living with a serious illness or disability outrank dying before turning 65 by five times. So putting mistaken trust in the government or your employer’s plan to cover your dire health needs can have disastrous results.

Learning that you or a loved one is severely ill can upset many aspects of your life. You, your mate, family members, and business partners may suffer more than physically and emotionally. The financial burdens of a debilitating disease can be shocking and draining. You may be desperate enough to consider anything from depleting your savings to selling your home. But if you had critical illness (CI) insurance, you could avoid such rash options and afford your necessary but overwhelming expenses.

According to a new survey of 16,000 international adults, Canadian parents rank among the least liable to leave inheritances to their children. The worldwide average is 21 percent, yet 27 percent of working-age Canadian adults plan to use up their financial resources on themselves and let their kids handle their uncertain futures alone. Just one of every 10 is willing to extend a financial helping hand to adult children. Most respondents don’t plan to offer any financial support like chipping in on car or home down payments.