The financial news that actually matters
August 7, 2026
- A living trust passes your home to heirs without probate’s cost and delay
- Cosigning a loan for a child or grandchild puts your own savings and credit on the hook if they stop paying
- Storm-chasing contractors collect deposits from older homeowners for repairs they never finish
- A signed power of attorney can be misused to drain a parent’s accounts
Latest Insights
A living trust passes your home to heirs without probate’s cost and delay
For most retirees, the family home is the largest thing they will ever pass on, and the last thing they want is for it to get stuck in a courthouse for months after they are gone. Probate, the legal process of settling an estate, can do exactly that: tie up a house, run up costs,...
Read MoreBanking & Regulation
Deposits and Withdrawals
FDIC insurance covers $250,000 per depositor, per bank, per ownership category
The familiar $250,000 bank-insurance number is incomplete without three labels attached to it. Coverage is measured by depositor, insured institution and legal ownership category, which can protect either less or far more than a quick account-balance check suggests. The limit applies to each recognized ownership category The FDIC states that the standard maximum deposit insurance...
Deposits and Withdrawals
Spreading money across FDIC ownership categories can insure well beyond $250,000 at one bank
The familiar $250,000 FDIC limit is not a single ceiling on every dollar one household keeps at a bank. Coverage is measured by depositor, insured institution and legal ownership category. A household that uses categories correctly can protect substantially more than $250,000 at one bank, while an account with the wrong title or beneficiary structure...
Deposits and Withdrawals
Credit-union IRAs get separate $250,000 federal insurance—but stocks, annuities and mutual funds get none
A retirement product sold inside a credit union lobby can carry either federal insurance or ordinary investment risk. The dividing line is not the building, logo or salesperson. Eligible IRA deposits at a federally insured credit union receive separate protection up to $250,000, while stocks, mutual funds and annuities are outside the National Credit Union...
Deposits and Withdrawals
FDIC’s database may hold insured deposits and dividends left behind after a bank failure
When an insured bank fails, most customers are reunited with insured deposits quickly through a successor bank or direct FDIC action. A smaller trail of money can remain unclaimed because an address changed, a check was never cashed, an estate intervened or a later receivership distribution arrived after the depositor stopped watching. The FDIC maintains...
Deposits and Withdrawals
Debit-card theft can expose every linked dollar after 60 days
Federal protections for debit-card theft shrink sharply when an unauthorized transaction sits unreported for more than 60 calendar days after the bank sends the statement showing it. Losses after that point can extend beyond one bad withdrawal to money taken from the affected account and accounts linked to it. The rule makes statement review a...
Deposits and Withdrawals
Brokerage failure protection stops at $500,000, including $250,000 for cash
SIPC protection is built for missing customer property after a member brokerage fails, not for an investment that falls in price. Its statutory ceiling is $500,000 per qualifying customer capacity, including no more than $250,000 for cash held to purchase securities. Understanding those boundaries matters when retirement assets sit at one institution under several account...
Housing & Real Estate
Mortgages and Insurance
Insurers use drone and satellite photos to drop homeowners over a stained roof
A homeowner can do everything right — pay every premium on time, never file a claim — and still open…
Mortgages and Insurance
Miss property taxes or homeowners insurance and a reverse mortgage can come due
A reverse mortgage removes the ordinary monthly principal-and-interest payment, but it does not remove the homeowner’s carrying costs. Property taxes…
Mortgages and Insurance
Heirs can keep a home with a reverse mortgage by repaying the loan or 95% of the home’s appraised value
When a homeowner with a reverse mortgage dies, the loan does not simply vanish, and it does not automatically cost…
Retirement & Social Security
Retirement Planning
A living trust passes your home to heirs without probate’s cost and delay
For most retirees, the family home is the largest thing they will ever pass on, and the last thing they want is for it to get stuck in a courthouse for months after they are gone. Probate, the legal process of settling an estate, can do exactly that: tie up a house, run up costs,...
Retirement Planning
Die without a will and the state, not your family, decides who gets your money and your home
A surprising number of older Americans with real money, a paid-off house, and a clear idea of who should get what have never put any of it in writing. It feels like something that can wait. But when a person dies without a valid will, the decision about who inherits stops being theirs and passes...
Retirement Planning
Adding a child to your home’s deed can trigger tax and creditor risk
upload — uploaded: true wp_post_id: 147324 wp_status: future scheduled_local: “2026-08-07T17:00:00” scheduled_gmt: “2026-08-07T22:00:00” featured_media: 147410 image_source_url: “https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Deed_of_Surrender_of_Thetford_Priory_1540_%28E322-240%29_%2841772369784%29.jpg/3840px-Deed_of_Surrender_of_Thetford_Priory_1540_%28E322-240%29_%2841772369784%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail” image_license: “No restrictions” image_commons_title: “File:Deed of Surrender of Thetford Priory 1540 (E322-240) (41772369784).jpg” title_integrity: PASS wp_author_id: 25 — Putting an adult child’s name on the deed of the family home is one of the most common estate moves older...
Retirement Planning
The beneficiary named on an account overrides your will, and an outdated one can send money to the wrong person
A carefully written will can spell out exactly who should inherit a family’s retirement accounts and insurance — and be completely powerless to make it happen. On those particular assets, a separate form filed years earlier, often forgotten, controls where the money goes. For older Americans whose largest holdings sit in retirement plans and insurance...
Retirement Planning
A widow often files taxes as single the next year and can owe thousands more on the same income
The tax bill that lands the year after a spouse dies can be a second, quieter blow to a grieving household. Often the surviving spouse is living on nearly the same retirement, pension, and Social Security income as before — yet a change in filing status alone can push the tax owed on that income...
Social Security
Debt collectors usually cannot seize two months of Social Security in your account
A garnishment order arriving at the bank is one of the more frightening things a retiree can face, because it threatens the money that covers rent, groceries, and medicine. For most older Americans whose income is Social Security, though, federal rules build in a powerful protection: when a bank receives a garnishment order, it must...
Social Security
Social Security will now spread an overpayment repayment across five years instead of demanding the money faster
An overpayment notice from Social Security can land like a financial emergency, because the agency has the power to withhold a large share of a monthly benefit until the debt is repaid. A recent policy change softens that blow. The Social Security Administration will now readily approve a repayment plan stretching as long as five...
Medicare
Medicare’s trustees project a Part B premium near $209.50 a month in 2027
Medicare’s trustees expect the standard Part B premium to climb again in 2027, to roughly $209.50 a month. Because that premium is pulled straight out of Social Security checks, an increase does not just raise a bill — it quietly trims the net benefit that lands in a retiree’s bank account each month. The figure...
Medicare
A canceled Advantage plan can leave you owing out-of-network bills until you switch
When a Medicare Advantage plan is discontinued, the coverage does not vanish the moment the notice arrives — and that gap between the announcement and the actual switch is where costly mistakes happen. A member who assumes the plan is already gone, and seeks care outside its network before enrolling in something new, can be...
Medicare
Clear Spring Health has pulled out of Medicare Advantage entirely, ending its plans in Illinois, Georgia and Colorado
Clear Spring Health has left the Medicare Advantage business for good, closing out its remaining plans in Illinois, Georgia and Colorado. The exit, which took effect on June 1, 2026, forced more than 12,000 members to find new coverage in the middle of the year rather than during the usual fall enrollment season. It is...
Social Security
Social Security is now pulling wage and bank data automatically to catch overpayments before they grow
The Social Security Administration has quietly rewired how it catches money it should not have paid out. Instead of waiting months or years for an unreported paycheck or an undisclosed bank balance to surface, the agency is now pulling wage and financial data on an ongoing basis to flag improper payments early. For the millions...
Medicare
More insurers are dropping Medicare Advantage plans for 2027, with Molina and Providence the latest to retreat
The list of insurers walking away from Medicare Advantage keeps getting longer, and the 2027 plan year is shaping up as one of the largest pullbacks yet. Molina Healthcare is exiting the business entirely, Providence Health Plan is winding most of its coverage down, and other carriers are shrinking their footprints — leaving tens of...
Social Security
Social Security’s 2027 COLA remains unofficial until October as CPI-W data develops
Every summer estimate of the next Social Security increase is built before the formula has all of its inputs. The official 2027 adjustment will emerge from a defined inflation comparison, and Social Security has not announced the result. SSA has set the announcement month, not the percentage The Social Security Administration’s current COLA page says...
Retirement Planning
A 65-year-old’s straight-life pension is federally guaranteed up to $93,477 if the plan fails in 2026
A six-figure pension guarantee sounds like a universal federal promise until the table behind it is examined. The number applies to a particular age, payment form and plan termination year, and each qualifier can change the protected benefit. The 2026 table starts with $7,789.77 a month The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation lists a maximum monthly...
Social Security
A Social Security waiver can pause overpayment collection, while a separate request can lower the 50% rate
A Social Security overpayment notice can threaten half of a monthly retirement or disability check under the current default recovery rule. Two different requests can protect cash flow, but they answer different questions and require different evidence. A waiver disputes repayment responsibility, not merely the pace Social Security permits a waiver when the beneficiary was...
Medicare
A Medicare Advantage plan nonrenewal creates a special enrollment window beyond Dec. 7
December 7 is a major Medicare deadline, but it is not the final door for a member whose Advantage plan is ending. Federal rules create an additional period because losing a plan is different from voluntarily shopping for a better one. Nonrenewal extends the calendar into the following year CMS guidance says members affected by...