Break from the Grind April 16, 2015

A Little Friday File Fun

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In Fremont, Ohio, a man told police he was using spray paint and a lighter to kill a mouse when he accidentally set fire to his garage. But, before that, he told them he saw flames in boxes he had recently mounted on the back of stereo speakers and that he tried to kick the fire out, but the fire spread and became worse. He then told them he went to the garage to smoke and noticed black smoke filling the garage, then ran to get a pan of water but returned to find the fire out of control. According to the News-Messenger, the fire was similar to another blaze that started in the garage in 2012. The cause of that blaze was never determined. The man has been charged with one felony count each of arson and aggravated arson.

In Lee County, Georgia, a 54-year-old man was outside his house when he fired his 9 mm pistol at an armadillo. The bullet killed the animal, but also ricocheted off of it, hit a fence, went through the back door of his mother-in-law’s mobile home, through a recliner she was sitting in, and into her back, according to the local FOX news station. The man was about 100 yards away from his mother-in-law’s home at the time, and the 74-year-old woman was fortunately not severely injured.

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In Eastport, New York, someone told a man who discovered bed bugs in his rental car that if he saturated them with alco.hol it would kill them. So, he poured alco.hol over the bugs in the vehicle. However, he then sat in the car and lit a cig.arette, which set the car ablaze. According to the Associated Press, the man fled the vehicle but not before suffering first- and second-degree burns. Police said two other cars were damaged from the heat of the fire.

In Riverdale, New Jersey, a man woke up to find his car missing from his driveway. The man called police to report the car stolen, but while on the phone, his “friend” called to say he had taken the man’s car in order to make a court appearance and was bringing the car back. As the friend returned from the court hearing concerning drug charges, police were there to meet him and discovered a hypod.ermic needle, crack pi.pe, drug parap.hernalia and an open bottle of whis.key, NJ Advance Media reported. Police also discovered the friend had a suspended driver’s license and shouldn’t have been driving in the first place.

Try to uproot a tree with your tractor; that’s a whippin’. 

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Those Buckingham Palace guards really do have to keep their cool at all times.

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Products April 16, 2015

Firm Debuts Retirement Health Costs Planning Tools

HealthView Services says its new calculators complement its existing tools used by major companies and advisers to help individuals plan for, manage and reduce retirement health care costs.
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A set of consumer-facing tools and a white paper from HealthView Services aim to help people incorporate health care costs into retirement planning.

HealthView Service’s tools give consumers a better way to understand what their health care costs might be in retirement, as well as long-term care costs and future retirement savings. Users receive a report that details average costs for people in similar circumstances after they supply basic information, such as age, gender, health status and location. New calculators were designed to spark conversations between investors and advisers to discuss how these expenses can be built into existing plans for retirement.

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The tools draw on the firm’s actuarial and medical professional-reviewed approach to calculate expected retirement health care costs for broker/dealers and financial advisers, according to Ron Mastrogiovanni, founder and chief executive of HealthView Services. “The health care costs calculator draws upon more than 50 million health care cases and a broad range of data points to provide a comprehensive perspective on the expected health care costs retirees will have to pay for out of their own pockets,” he said in a statement.

Despite the concerns about health care costs in retirement expressed so commonly by consumers and advisers, many people still haven’t built these costs into their retirement planning, the firm says. HealthView’s white paper, “Closing the Retirement Health Care Costs Planning Gap: The Next Retirement Planning Challenge,” highlights a number of reasons for the gap and outlines several simple retirement planning steps and questions that need to be asked. Case studies help underscore the benefits of incorporating health care costs into retirement planning.

“The takeaway from this work is that while total lifetime health care costs will be higher than many expect, if planned for early enough, these costs are manageable,” Mastrogiovanni believes. “By incorporating them in planning during working years, we believe retirees will be better positioned to make informed planning decisions and realize the retirement security they seek.”  

HealthView Services provides retirement health care planning applications, including Medicare, long-term care and Social Security optimization. More information is on its website.

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