Average annual premiums for family health benefits top $15,000 in 2011, up 9 percent, substantially more than the growth in workers’ wages, survey finds

After several years of relatively modest premium increases, annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage increased to $15,073 this year, up 9 percent from last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust 2011 Employer Health Benefits Survey. On average, workers pay $4,129 and employers pay $10,944 toward those annual premiums. Premiums increased significantly faster than workers' wages (2.1 percent) and general inflation (3.2 percent). Since 2001, family premiums have increased 113 percent, compared with 34 percent for workers' wages and 27 percent for inflation.

"This year's nine percent increase in premiums is especially painful for workers and employers struggling through a weak recovery," Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman, Ph.D. said.

The 13th annual Kaiser/HRET survey of small and large employers provides a detailed picture of trends in private health insurance costs and coverage. This year's survey also looked at employers' experiences with several already implemented provisions of the 2010 health reform law affecting employer coverage. In particular, the survey estimates that employers added 2.3 million young adults to their parents' family health insurance policies as a result of the health reform provision that allows young adults up to age 26 without employer coverage on their own to be covered as dependents on their parents' plan. Young adults historically are more likely to be uninsured than any other age group. "The law is helping millions of young adults to obtain health coverage. In the past, many of these young adults would have lost coverage when they left home or graduated college," said study lead author Gary Claxton, a Kaiser vice president and co-executive director of the Kaiser Initiative on Health Reform and Private Insurance.

The study also finds 31 percent of covered workers are in high-deductible health plans, facing deductibles for single coverage of at least $1,000, including 12 percent facing deductibles of at least $2,000. Covered workers in smaller firms (3-199 workers) are more likely to face such high deductibles, with half of workers in smaller firms facing deductibles of at least $1,000, including 28 percent facing deductibles of $2,000 or more.

These numbers in part reflect the rise of consumer-driven plans, which are high-deductible plans that include a tax-preferred savings options such as a Health Savings Account or Health Reimbursement Arrangement. Over the past two years, more firms have started to offer these plans, and the share of covered workers enrolled in this type of plan has doubled, from 8 percent in 2009 to 17 percent in 2011. Plans that can be used with a Health Savings Account have lower premiums than other plan types, but must have annual deductibles of at least $1,200 for an individual and $2,400 for a family this year.

Other findings related to health reform. The survey finds that 56 percent of covered workers are in "grandfathered" plans as defined under health reform. Grandfathered plans are exempted from some health reform requirements, including covering preventive benefits with no cost sharing and having an external appeals process. To obtain this status, employers cannot make significant changes to their plans that reduce benefits or increase employee cost.

One in four covered workers (23 percent) are in plans that changed their cost-sharing requirements for preventive services as a result of a requirement of the health reform law that non-grandfathered plans provide certain preventive benefits without cost sharing. In addition, 31 percent of covered workers are in plans that changed the list of preventive services due to health reform.

In addition:

• Worker-only coverage. Premiums for worker-only health coverage increased 8 percent in 2011 to reach $5,429 annually. Workers on average pay $921 toward this coverage.
• Offer rate. The share of firms offering health insurance to their workers is 60 percent this year, comparable to the levels in 2009 and earlier years. Last year's survey found an unexplained sharp increase in the share of the smallest firms (3-9 workers) offering coverage, boosting the overall offer rate; this year's results suggest that the one-year bump did not reflect a change in the long-term trend.
• Cost-sharing for office visits and drugs. Covered workers facing copayments for in-network physician office visits on average pay $22 for primary care and $32 for specialty care. For covered workers with three- and four-tier drug plans, average copayments are $10 for generic drugs, $29 for preferred brand-name drugs, $49 for non-preferred brand-name drugs, and $91 for specialty drugs.
• Retiree health benefits. Among large firms (200 or more workers), about one in four (26 percent) offer retiree health benefits in 2011, unchanged from last year and down significantly from 32 percent in 2007.

Source: Henry J. Kaiser Foundation

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The Divorce Savings Plan

When I was a kid, growing up in the sixties, I remember how our local bank offered a Christmas Club savings account. You could deposit as little as $1 a week and by the end of the year, you'd have more than enough cash to buy gifts for everyone.

Some banks may still offer a Christmas savings account. But, if you ask me, it would have been nice if banks also offered a Divorce Club savings account. Imagine if my parents had had the foresight to start such an account for me when I was just seven, I would have had enough money to get divorced in style. I mean, a dollar a week, multiplied by 30 years, add in the two percent average interest rate, amortized, and well, I'm no financial whiz by any means, but that would have given me a tidy bundle.

I'm pretty sure that by the time my marriage hit the skids, I would have had enough funds to hire any one of the attorneys who represented Tiger Woods, Rupert Murdoch or even Mel Gibson, for at least a week. A friend had once suggested I hire an attorney that would go for the jugular. I assumed he meant my ex's jugular, but lawyers like that were certainly beyond my means. Yet, if I'd had a divorce savings account, I might have been able to afford one who could give my ex a slap on the wrist.

Divorce is pricey, and the meter starts running right out of the gate, the moment you decide to separate and live apart. It's enough to give the term, "separation anxiety," a whole new meaning. In fact, I happen to know at least one couple who decided to stay together, simply because they could not afford the hefty price tag of divorce.

For starters, in one fell swoop, you and your spouse go from paying the rent/mortgage on one home to paying for two, not to mention all the other costs associated with maintaining two households. And this is before you have even hire a lawyer! If you ask me, two of everything is over-the-top expensive.

Which is why my ex and I tried to do it on a shoestring. Instead of moving out, he moved across the hall. This didn't last long, though. It became too much for me when I overheard him planning a weekend getaway with the other woman. Which is when it hit me:

Unless you're six degrees from living on the streets, saving money isn't a good enough reason to live under the same roof with a spouse who no longer feels anything for you, not even a modicum of compassion.

The way I see it, if he had time to plan a romantic vacation, then he should have enough time to find a place to live. And, sure enough, 48 hours later, he did just that and began packing up his things.

To help with the costs of two households, I took a page from Kate and Allie. For those of you who don't recall, "Kate & Allie" was a popular sitcom during the 80's, about two divorced moms who moved into a New York brownstone together, with their kids in tow. Perhaps they did it in order to give each other much needed emotional support. I think they did it to save money. Either way, it was a smart idea.

With my ex now out of the house, I had to contend with the mortgage. I had a friend who was just separating from her husband, so I invited her and her children to move in. Between her three, and my two, we had a full house. Together, not only were we able to save money, but we could also commiserate, sharing our "war" stories, while taking turns watching each other's kids, when needed. And, at least once a week, we'd try to gather for a family meal.

We were a new kind of family. A Kate and Allie plus five, and for a year this proved to be an admirable solution. I was able to pay the mortgage, stress-free, while searching for a job. Meanwhile, living with me helped my friend save up enough to get a place of her own. And, once the house was sold, and the proceeds divvied up, I was able to move out and find a small place for me, and my kids. The divorce tab was running, but thanks to these actions, it was running at a much slower speed.

So, despite not having a divorce savings account, I made it through, with the help of a housemate. And, if you ask me, it was just what we both needed to get us through the high-cost of divorce.  By Monica Medina 

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What to Do If Your Ex-Spouse Took Your Child Out of State

By Jeremy T. Simons, Esq.

In any given week, I rotate my column topic between contract/business issues and family law issues. I have noticed that in my contract and business articles, I often provide information that could be called "preventive" in nature. In other words, I write about how to recover bad checkswithout going to court, what to consider when reading contracts, and how to set up a business to avoid liability.

My family law articles routinely are "reactive" in nature. I talk about how to deal with normally unimaginable situations such as domestic violence, changes in custody, relocation with children, and so forth.  After reflection, I have decided that the reason is because in family law cases, normally reasonable people engage in some incredibly unreasonable and irrational acts. I guess the classic Hume statement is ever present in family law: "Reason is the slave of emotion."

An unfortunate situation I deal with more times than I thought possible is when one parent lives out of state and refuses to return the child to Florida. Let us assume the following facts: You have primary time-sharing of your child and the court order reflecting this was entered into by a judge in Florida. Your ex-spouse lives out of state.  Your child went to spend the summer with your ex-spouse, and a few days before your child was to return to Florida, your ex-spouse said he or she is now refusing to return the child and will fight for custody in his or her state. We must also assume there is not a legally valid justification for your ex-spouse to not return the child.

First thing you can do is thank your ex-spouse profusely for immediately creating a legal nightmare that will probably require you to hire a team of attorneys.  

To set the legal framework, family law and domestic relations are typically governed by each individual state. Additionally, your Florida judge's jurisdiction only extends to the Florida state line. In other words, a Florida judge cannot make the police or courts in another court act or not act. 

However, almost every state has enacted a statute titled the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act("UCCJEA"). The provisions and applications of the act are complicated because there are exceptions to every rule, but essentially it attempts to assist you in our scenario by preventing the ex-spouse's state from taking jurisdiction until the child has resided in the "foreign" state for at least six months. 

There is also a federal law called the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act designed to assist you. This federal statute is supposed to obligate local law enforcement to enforce valid child custody orders. 

(For international kidnappings, which is far beyond the scope of this article, start here.)

I have dealt with our scenario in the following states: Texas, Arizona, Colorado, New York, and Michigan. Each state seemed to handle our scenario radically different. I found Arizona ready, willing, and able to enforce a Florida Court order very quickly and without court intervention. Texas, on the other hand, provided me with severe difficulty and refused to honor my Florida court order without involving the Texas courts in a lengthy process. This is not a reflection on these states, but only what happened in my individual cases. I cannot say that Arizona or Texas treat all cases the same.

What You Can Do

Of course, if it were as easy as picking up the phone and calling the local police in your ex-spouse's city, an attorney would not write an entire article on this area of law. However, that should be your first course of action. Your phone call certainly cannot hurt your situation. 

If your courtesy call is unsuccessful, you need to contact your trusted family law attorney immediately. Please do not try to litigate something like this on your own. Your local Florida attorney will likely file for emergency relief in Florida. 

The second step is to retain an attorney in the city where the ex-spouse lives. That attorney, in accordance with the foreign state law, will most likely "domesticate" your court order in the foreign state and seek a court order requiring the police to pick up your child and return the child to you. 

Once the child is back, you can seek assistance from Florida courts and ask that the ex-spouse do the following, which is not a full list of remedies:

1. Only spend time with your child within Florida; or
2. Post a bond so if he or she does this again, you have access to funds to pay an attorney and travel to the foreign state; or
3. Reimburse you for the attorneys fees and expenses you have already paid; or
4. Suspend time-sharing or require supervised time-sharing.

The most stressful part of our scenario is that usually your trusted Florida attorney is unfamiliar with the foreign state laws and procedures, so you and your Florida attorney rely heavily on the attorney and courts in an unknown and unfamiliar state. 

Rest assured that if your ex-spouse has engaged in this unimaginable and irrational act without justification, the laws are designed to assist you. However, you will need to have some patience and a rational approach to reach the positive resolution. 

For more information on these matters, please call our office at 305 548 5020.

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Great Tips for Dads Raising Daughters

By J. Benjamin Stevens

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Attention dads – if you have a daughter, please do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to read the list of tips from Michael Mitchell, which contains many suggestions to help you be a better father to her.  His list includes the following gems:

1. Love her mom. Treat her mother with respect, honor, and a big heaping spoonful of public displays of affection. When she grows up, the odds are good she'll fall in love with and marry someone who treats her much like you treated her mother. Good or bad, that's just the way it is. I'd prefer good.
2. Always be there. Quality time doesn't happen without quantity time. Hang out together for no other reason than just to be in each other's presence. Be genuinely interested in the things that interest her. She needs her dad to be involved in her life at every stage. Don't just sit idly by while she add years to her… add life to her years.
3. Save the day. She'll grow up looking for a hero. It might as well be you. She'll need you to come through for her over and over again throughout her life. Rise to the occasion. Red cape and blue tights optional.
4. Savor every moment you have together. Today she's crawling around the house in diapers, tomorrow you're handing her the keys to the car, and before you know it, you're walking her down the aisle. Some day soon, hanging out with her old man won't be the bees knees anymore. Life happens pretty fast. You better cherish it while you can.
5. Pray for her. Regularly. Passionately. Continually. 

You can read the other 45 tips by clicking here, or you can read the ever-growing list of tips here (currently at 147 and counting). 

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When a Florida Family Law Court May Deviate From The Child Support Guidelines

Article by Florida Law Group

Florida family law justices will normally follow the Florida Child Support Guidelines when ruling how much child support is required from each parent. The guidelines describe how much child support should be paid by each parent based on the net income and amount of children involved. A Florida family law justice will presume the Florida Child Support Guidelines are suitable; however, the court can differ from the standards in certain situations. A skilled Tampa family law attorney could assist his clients in evaluating if the court is expected to differ from the guidelines.

Florida family law courts are supposed to supply written explanations each time they depart from the Florida Child Support Guidelines. These written explanations are a helpful resource for Tampa divorce attorneys because it provides insight into why a court may deviate from the published guidelines. A skilled Tampa divorce attorney will analyze hundreds of these court explanations and be able to see a pattern of when the Florida family law court is likely to deviate from the published guidelines. The team of Tampa divorce lawyers at Florida Law Group has reviewed hundreds of written court opinions in order to ascertain the frequent factors and circumstances for deviating from the child support guidelines. The Tampa divorce attorneys at Florida Law Group have uncovered the most common circumstances in which a court is likely to differ from the guidelines. The research done by our qualified Tampa divorce lawyers is commonly used to help advise our clients on the amount of child support they should be obligated to provide. For example, a Florida family law court is likely to differ from the guidelines if the child requires extraordinary medical, psychological, or dental care. Florida family law courts also usually take into consideration any seasonal variations in the parent's income or expenses.

There are numerous other circumstances in which a court is likely to depart from the proscribed guidelines. For a complete assessment of your individual circumstances contact Florida Law Group for a free consultation. The knowledgeable Tampa divorce lawyers at Florida Law Group could review all the factors of your divorce and supply you with advice on what you should expect from the divorce proceedings.

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Baa baa black sheep, are you in the will?

Baa baa black sheep, are you in the will?

ROMA LUCIW - The Globe and Mail

It is the kind of estate-planning drama that regularly plays out in the office of lawyer Barry Fish: A mother has two grown children. The daughter is her "good child" while the son is insulting, uncaring and estranged.

Despite the son's black-sheep status, the mother wants to make peace and won't cut him out of her will. She agonizes, and eventually decides to leave 95 per cent of the estate to her "good" daughter, whom she makes executor, and the remaining 5 per cent to her "bad" son.

"The glitch is that the bad son, once he finds out that he has a piece of the action, drives the good daughter crazy," says Mr. Fish, who has been practising estate law for 38 years in Thornhill, Ont.. "He demands a full accounting of the whole estate, challenges everything, and creates no end of difficulty for her."

Mr. Fish says the mother would have been better off writing the son a cheque for $10,000 and leaving the estate to her daughter. The son "is not going to get far challenging that in court," he says.

Estate planning is an emotionally charged process, but having a black sheep in the family makes it vastly more complicated.

With more money at stake, and a growing focus on proper estate planning, what was once only an issue for the well-off has extended to older Canadians of all financial backgrounds. A huge transfer of wealth is soon to occur in Canada, with one estimate projecting that baby boomers will inherit $1-trillion over the next 20 years.

"Think about 10 families you know, and there will most likely be at least one black-sheep child in one of these families," says Mark Goodfield, a tax partner at Cunningham LLP in Toronto and author of the Blunt Bean Counter blog.

Some fall under the classic definition of black sheep – a son or daughter who has embraced values the parents don't approve of. But for the purposes of estate planning, Mr. Goodfield says, there are other kinds: the person who is financially irresponsible; the drug or alcohol addict; the person who has a partner the parents strongly dislike.

"A black-sheep child can be one that just spends crazily so parents have to deal with them separately in their will," he says.

When there's a family business, a son or daughter who doesn't work for it may be considered the odd one out.

There are a myriad of issues parents struggle with: Do they reward the "good" child with a bigger inheritance? Or do they leave more money to the "bad" child, since they will need it more? What if he or she is married to someone they don't trust? Sometimes, the parents disagree between themselves.

Of course, there is no rule that parents have to include all or any of their children in their wills. In the case of estrangement, some parents choose to cut a child out completely.

(In that case, it is important to "bullet-proof" the will by officially verifying the parent's medical capacity, Mr. Fish says. To avoid a challenge based on undue influence, the favoured child should not be present when the lawyer and parent are working on the will.)

"From what I have seen, people are emotional powder kegs," Mr. Fish says.

In most situations, parents would like to be even-handed.

"As a starting point, most parents want to treat their children equally," says Elaine Blades, director of fiduciary services at Scotia Private Client Group. "At the very least, they want to be fair. I tell clients that fair and equal are not always the same thing."

The more marriages and children you throw into the picture, the more complicated it gets, she says.

One solution is to create a testamentary trust, which will ensure the black-sheep child will receive an inheritance once the parent dies. By placing specific conditions on the trust, parents can control how and when the money is spent.

"There are trusts that you can set up where the money can only be used to pay for education," Ms. Blades says. "Or you can make sure that if the child files for bankruptcy, you will not end up paying the creditors."

Sometimes parents choose to take into account that they have spent more on one child during their lifetime – as in the case of a professional student – and leave an unequal distribution at the time of death to make up for that.

Although parents have no obligation to treat their children equally, many feel guilty if they do not, says Ms. Blades. Some worry about the optics of giving one child their share outright while putting another's in a trust.

One way around that is to put both children's inheritance in a trust but place more stringent conditions on the black-sheep child's access to the money.

"Parents don't want to make it look like they love one child more than the other," Ms. Blades says. "So this is a satisfying solution. At first glance the distribution looks equal, but the money in one child's can in effect be a lot harder to get at."

Some parents feel responsible for how their black-sheep child turned out. "There can be tremendous guilt from the parents. Sometimes they feel obliged to put something in the will saying why they included or excluded them," Ms. Blades says.

Mr. Fish says parents can unknowingly create problems for the "good" child by favouring him or her in their will. "The biggest challenge is to create peace for the favoured child: to come away knowing you have made their position as free from conflict as possible."

Making one child the trustee of the other's inheritance, or the sole executor of the will, often ruins relations between brothers and sisters, he says.

"I have seen children beg their parents not to be harsh because they have to have a relationship with their sibling."

One solution is for parents to "thin out" their estate, basically giving children some of their inheritance while still alive, Mr. Fish says.

Although minimizing the tax hit is a key consideration when estate planning, Mr. Fish cautions against emphasizing that alone. .

"Do not create a situation which is going to create turmoil for those who follow you by giving them a tax advantage," he says. "The prevailing consideration should be how life will be for those you leave behind. I have seen people's whole lives altered by a failure to address that."

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Netflux – A Qwikster Innovation Divorce for Netflix

Breaking up is hard to do, but sometimes it is the right thing to do.

Imagine my surprise when an e-mail from Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix arrived in my inbox this morning announcing that Ms. Netflix was getting an innovation divorce.

Yes, Ms. Netflix has decided to send her old man packing and is no longer ashamed to tell you his name – Qwikster. Yes, Mr. Qwikster has been kicked to the curb with his DVD and Blu-Ray collection. Rumor has it Mr. Qwiskter was caught having a 'qwikie' with a mature video game, and Ms. Netflix decided she'd had enough. The newly independent Ms. Netflix announced she planned to devote all of her energy to her passion for streaming content now that Mr. Qwikster was out of the picture. Both hope that their individual pictures will be sharper after the breakup – and in full high-definition. They will share custody of their children Television and Movies, with Ms. Netflix getting custody online and Mr. Qwikster maintaining his relationship with the two by mail. Some friends of Ms. Netflix and Mr. Qwikster have already abandoned one or the other, with some people maintaining a relationship with both. In time we will find out who really has more friends.

I wish both Ms. Netflix and Mr. Qwikster the best of luck in their new lives apart from each other.

The Importance of Focus to Innovation

Surely I jest, but this news event has important innovation implications to discuss, and innovation should be about fun. The most important of these implications is focus.

When it comes to innovation, scale and breadth of offering often lose out to focus.

But few leaders have the courage to make the hard choices that are often necessary to keep innovation vibrant and the executives focused where they need to have their attention, while liberating the entrepreneurs to pursue the next best innovation with the passionate persistence it takes to succeed.

The divorce will allow each business to optimize its supply chain, its strategy, and most importantly will allow executives to spend less time in meetings that don't effect their sphere of impact so that they can focus on identifying and executing innovation projects that create new value for their customers.

While I believe that Netflix strategically mishandled the execution of their innovation divorce from Qwikster, I must applaud its rationale. Although, I'm not so sure about the line in Reed's e-mail where he talks about AOL and Border's. Does that mean that he thinks that Qwikster is dead on arrival?

Personally I used to play Blockbuster and Redbox off of each other until my local Blockbuster went out of business. That forced me into a 'friendship' with Mr. Qwikster and Ms. Netflix. Now, I probably get more value out of my relationship with Mr. Qwikster because I can order old Disney classics like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to watch with my daughter, but if Ms. Netflix ever got her act together and formed real relationships with people like Mr. Disney and his friends Hanna and Barbera, then maybe I would ask Mr. Qwikster to stop mailing me stuff.

It will be interesting to see how Ms. Netflix and Mr. Qwiskter develop on their own. Ms. Netflix faces a huge headwind in building real relationships with the movie and television studios, and there is no guarantee that Netflix will win in the streaming space. Redbox is entering the space, Amazon is there, and Apple and maybe even Spotify pose real risks. Who will win? I don't know, but it will be interesting to watch, although maybe not in 3D.

One Final Thought

I'm not so sure about the new name though – Qwikster – what is that? A cross between Quicken and Friendster?

I would be curious to hear what your take is on the name and whether you believe they will be able to achieve more innovation apart than together.

by Braden Kelley

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Estate Executors: An Honor...and a Pain

By ARDEN DALE

Being asked by friends or family to be executor of an estate is a big honor, but the warm feelings can vanish once the job starts.

A long list of tasks comes with the chore of handling an estate after someone dies. There can be legal repercussions if something goes wrong. And it is not unusual for relationships to sour along the way. Anyone who takes on the job has to be organized, with an appetite for red tape and tedium.

Executorships gone bad are on the rise, according to Margaret E.W. Sager, a partner at law firm Heckscher, Teillon Terrill & Sager in Philadelphia.

Ms. Sager says she has seen an "epidemic" of executors—often siblings or other family members—looking for help because something went wrong. She speculates that the increase may be due to economic hard times—causing more fights over shares of inheritances—and even what she sees as a society that is growing less civilized.

An executor administers a will through probate, a court process that involves accounting for assets, paying bills and distributing property as the deceased person wished.

Doing this usually takes a year or two for midsize estates, but can stretch as long as two, three or more years for bigger, more complicated estates. Challenges by heirs or others may put the executor in the middle of depositions and court appearances.

While a nonprofessional can do the job with good advice, says Stephen M. Breitstone, a partner at Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone in Mineola, N.Y., ideally, it's not a role "for amateurs."

Besides staying abreast of rules on taxes, investing, conflicts of interest and more, anyone who takes on the job needs to feel confident about picking stocks and bonds or hiring someone to do it. Delegating brings its own responsibility: An executor must choose advisers wisely, monitor progress and generally keep an eye on things.

To top it all off, the money isn't great. States set guidelines on how much to pay executors, so depending on the state and whether the will directs otherwise, some may receive little compensation in return for a heavy work load. Family and friends can be (and often are) paid for acting as executor, but some decline pay.

Sometimes the heirs in complex wills end up wishing the deceased had appointed someone other than a family member as executor.

Don R. Weigandt, managing director, wealth advisory, with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s private bank in Los Angeles, remembers the case of a college English professor who was appointed executor for his father's estate.

The estate in the case was divided among the professor, his sister, and the father's wife, who was not the mother of either child. A dispute broke out right away. The wife said the assets of her dead husband were community property, and that she should get more than the estate plan said. She sued, and though the court ultimately upheld the plan, the son's previously warm relationship with his stepmother was destroyed.

"Let's just say that holiday gatherings became fewer and less cordial," says Mr. Weigandt.

Still, plenty of amateurs do act as executors, and some do well, says Mary Randolph, author of "The Executor's Guide," a do-it-yourself guide published by Nolo, a Berkeley, Calif., publisher specializing in law.

For the well-organized, the job is manageable, though perhaps a bit of a grind because "you will be on the phone with banks and beneficiaries," according to Ms. Randolph.

A lot of people must make a pop decision about whether they want the executor job after learning—much to their surprise after Great Aunt Edna dies—that she named them for the job.

Advice for anyone thinking about naming a friend or relative as executor: Tell the person before you die. That way, she or he can think through whether it is really a good fit. Talking about it in advance is also a good idea because the executor-candidate can get a sense of how to go about the job later on.

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Retiring Solo: Too Many Singles and Divorcees Aren't Saving Enough

You've seen the commercial: A 50-something couple sits side-by-side in matching bathtubs, watching a sunset together. The ad may be for Cialis, but the image strikes a familiar chord. Walking hand-in-hand through one's golden years with a beloved companion is something most married people look forward to, at least in theory.

But sometimes, reality is far more bleak. Take Lee Block's experience. One day in 2004, the stay-at-home-mom from Houston went grocery shopping with her two small children. She tried to write a check for her purchases, only to find out her joint checking account had been shut down by her husband, whom she was divorcing. Block, 44, learned the hard way about financial independence and being single again. Today,she's a divorce coach. Her urgent advice for those who are going through a split: "Understand money when you are divorced. Know how much it costs to live, and understand how much you are going to need down to the penny."

100 Million Singles Need to Plan for the Future

While getting back on your feet financially is an obvious part of resuming single life, one oft-overlooked aspect is planning for a solo retirement. A new study from Charles Schwab shows that85% of married Americans have begun to save for retirement, but only 67% of singles are putting away fundsfor their later years. It's not just the divorced who are failing to plan ahead: There is an increasing number of never-married Americans, and those who do marry are staying single longer beforehand.

For many older women, too, becoming single again is a natural outcome of longer lifespans. Women outlive men by seven years on average. All told, there are nearly 100 million single people in the United States, according to the latest Census Bureau figures.

Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, senior vice president at Schwab, says that being married adds a level of accountability to retirement planning that single people don't necessarily have. "Not having to answer to someone else gives you an illusion that time will keep ticking," she says.

Another issue clouding retirement planning thanks to the advancing age of first marriages is the perception that retirement planning can wait until after the "I dos." But nearly every financial planner agrees that the earlier retirement planning starts, the easier it is to build a substantial nest egg. "The longer you wait, the harder it is to catch up," Schwab-Pomerantz says.

For all these reasons, it is vitally important that single people take control of their financial destinies as soon as they can, she says.

Don't Let Divorce Derail Retirement Planning

When couples get divorced, money contributed to retirement accounts by either spouse during the marriage is considered a marital asset, and can be divvied up under aqualified domestic relations order. While that may provide some retirement security, Debra Fournier, a certified divorce financial analyst in Manasquan, N.J., says that it is crucial for singles to continue contributing to retirement on their own after a split.

"Pay yourself first," she says. Adjusting to a new -- usually lower -- level of lifestyle is critical for the newly single, but Fournier says budget adjustments should never come at the expense of saving for retirement.

Schwab-Pomerantz agrees that retirement savings need to be the first allocation for money, especially if the single person has a matching 401(k) program. Secondly, she advises people to pay off high-interest debt like credit cards, and thirdly, create an emergency fund.

"As a single person, you don't want to be in a position where you have to sell long-terms assets to pay for an emergency or get an emergency loan," she says. "It is better to have some cash."

Block, who coaches the newly single, says often she sees splits that end with nothing after child support, alimony and taxes. "If you come out and you have nothing, chances are there was nothing there to split or not enough to make a difference," she says. For many women who were stay-at-home moms, that means heading back into the workforce and getting a job, ideally one with benefits. However, sometimes plain old income is the first step.

"I have clients that have gone out and waitressed to make sure they know their kids are going to be OK. You do what you have to do," Block says. "Don't get mired down in 'why me.' Step up and take the bull by the horns. The fact is, when you are divorced, you are responsible for everything."

FiveRetirementPlanning Tips forSingles

1. Live below your means.Financial planner Fournier says the biggest mistake she sees among the newly divorced is the failure to adjust to a lower income. "Lifestyles change dramatically on both sides [in a divorce]," she says. "The expenses stay the same, but there is less income." The challenges for many new singles are cost containment and not racking up credit card debt.

2. Save 10% to 25% of your income for retirement.Don't underestimate the power of compound interest, nor the expenses you'll have in retirement, says Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz. The earlier you start saving, the less you have to save from each paycheck over time. For singles in their 20s, she advises saving 10% of your income toward retirement; for 30-somethings, bump that up to 15%, and for 40s and beyond between 20% and 25%.

3. Maximize your company match and IRA contributions.Fournier says that many times in a divorce, people stop contributing to their 401(k) or IRA plans to increase cash flow. That's a mistake: Make whatever budget cuts are necessary so that retirement is not compromised.

4. Get long-term care insurance."It's a comfort to have some kind of long-term care insurance and not have to rely on somebody else," Fournier says. Cost of home care ranges from state to state, but the cost of living in a private nursing home in 2011 is more than $77,000 a year.Long-term care insurancecan defray those costs.

5. Create an emergency savings cushion.A savings account that contains enough cash to cover three to six months of expenses can be the difference between having to sell assets under pressure and navigating an emergency with your financial plan intact.

ByCatherine New

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