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Vol. 79, No. 6, November 2025

FEATURED ARTICLES

The Individual Retirement Account at 50: A Powerful Savings Tool
Sarah A. Holden, PhD
This research highlights the vital role financial advisers play in helping IRA investors with rollovers, asset allocation, withdrawals, and retirement income strategies. IRAs, now marking 50 years, have become the largest part of the U.S. retirement system, totaling $17 trillion across 58 million households by the end of 2024. Traditional IRAs, fueled by rollovers from employer plans, remain the most common. Roth IRAs, funded with after-tax contributions, are popular with younger savers. The article explores how investors enter and use IRAs over time and identifies ways advisers can grow IRA participation.

New Minimum Distribution Rules Encourage Partial Annuitization in Retirement Income Strategies
Gaobo Pang, PhD
Mark Warshawsky, PhD
Previously, the required minimum distribution (RMD) rules disadvantaged partial annuitization because total payments were taxed more heavily than straight withdrawal strategies, like the Bengen rule. The SECURE 2.0 legislation provides equal treatment of taxation for partial annuitization. This new analysis examines the outcomes based on stochastic asset returns and life annuity prices. There are high failure rates at older ages using the Bengen rule. A rule-of-thumb 50/50 annuity/equity asset strategy exhibits superior harmonization of income and asset outcomes compared to pure withdrawal and full annuitization strategies. This combination strategy under the new RMD rules reduces income subject to taxation and thus encourages its use by retired households.

Key Strategies for a Smarter, More Directed College Search
Cozy Wittman
The college search is more complex and nuanced today than even 10 years ago, making it harder for your clients to identify right fit schools. Challenges include the continually growing number of schools on the selective list, FAFSA changes that make it more difficult for families to get access to need-based aid, and the misunderstanding around acceptance and merit aid. This article will help advisors understand how to help clients more successfully navigate the college financial aid landscape and get their clients’ children through college on time and on budget.

DEPARTMENTS

Editor’s View
The Journal of Financial Service Professionals 2025 Year in Review
Kenn Beam Tacchino, JD, LLM
We present a review of the many insightful columns and articles that were published in the Journal of Financial Service Professionals in 2025. By examining this information, NAIFA members and all Journal readers can easily locate important information that will enhance their professional knowledge and enable them to better serve their clients.

Accounting and Taxation
Section 754: A Review of Sale and Exchange Effects
Bill Harden, CPA, ChFC, PhD
The concept of the Section 754 effect is actually simple: one will make adjustments to the inside basis of assets in order to keep the basis balance sheet in balance. That is it conceptually! The trick, or complication, is in how to make the specific adjustments asset by asset when there are multiple assets and/or when there are multiple triggering events affecting the partnership.

Estate Planning
The Surge of Crypto “Wrench” Crimes
Mark R. Parthemer, JD, AEP, ACTEC Fellow
Our clients with digital wealth indeed may have excellent cybersecurity — but they still might be physically vulnerable to crime. We can be part of the solution in client education, risk design, and asset protection. Helping our clients protect their digital assets and physical well-being is more critical than ever and underscores the importance of vigilance, continuous learning, and proactive measures in safeguarding our information.

Financial Gerontology
The Reality of Longevity and Alzheimer’s
Sherri Snelling, MAG
The goal of longevity is to optimize quality of life (QoL) where health spans and wealth spans equal lifespans. We know one in three adults over age 85 will have some type of dementia and will live another 7 years after diagnosis. With a growing population of Alzheimer’s adults—7 million today increasing to almost 13 million by 2050—helping clients nav- ¡gate the financial as well as emotional tolls of this disease will become an increasingly important advisor role. Financial advisors will not only deal with the impact of dementia on a client’s wealth and retirement planning (whether that client be the one with the dementia, the spouse or the adult child) but will also have to understand the legal issues associated with cognitive decline as well as a new set of communication and situational awareness skills. This article explores the key tools, knowledge, and emotional intelligence advisors will need when it comes to Alzheimer’s in America.

In the Client’s Best Interest
Permanent Life Insurance?
Richard M. Weber, MBA, CLU, AEP (Distinguished)
Chris W. Kite, MBA
When a flexible premium universal life policy’s in-force illustration projects it will lapse in retirement, policy owners often do not receive timely guidance on how premiums or benefits should be adjusted to maintain policy values. A new premium may not be calculated until there is a year or less before the policy value would be depleted and the policy would lapse. By then, the premium required just to cover costs is often prohibitively high. What may have been described at the outset as a “permanent” life insurance policy may not meet buyer expectations.

Insurance and Risk Management
Expanding Client Risk Tolerance: Education, Emotion, and the Advisor’s Role
Jim Karthaus, MA, CFP, CLU, ChFC
Investor risk tolerance can evolve through education, which engages top-down cognitive control to align comfort with objective risk capacity. In today’s post-pension environment, longevity and inflation risks demand informed decisions. This column outlines an educator-first approach to help clients make goal- aligned, confident risk choices.

Social Security Planning
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse?
Bruce D. Schobel, FSA, MAAA, CLU, CEBS
Social Security continues to play a critical role in the lives of 70 million beneficiaries and 185 million covered workers and their families. With informed discussion, creative thinking, and timely legislative action, Social Security can continue to protect future generations. However, at this time, two important points need to be considered. First, DOGE has not found any meaningful or preventable fraud, waste, or abuse in Social Security. Second, the Social Security Trustees report that Social Security will run a deficit within a decade. In this column, we take a closer look at these issues.