Benjamin Franklin, famous founding father of the United States, once wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Unfortunately, despite its certainty, far too many Americans fail to prepare for their eventual demise—and they leave their families to pay the price. In fact, according to the Life Insurance and Market Research Association (LIMRA), while 85 percent of consumers agree that they need life insurance, only 62 percent have actually purchased a policy.

Do you include employee training and development in your benefits package? You should—research has revealed that workers consider such benefits when deciding whether to accept a new position or stay with their current employer. In fact, one study conducted by The Society for Human Resource Management discovered a direct correlation between employee turnover and development opportunities—or the lack thereof.

According to the IRS, conversions were particularly common among IRA investors with annual incomes that exceeded $1 million. In fact, more than 10 percent of them converted an individual retirement account to a Roth. This shows a preference among the affluent to pay taxes on retirement savings now rather than later.

Cyber criminals love a good holiday spree! In the midst of 2013’s holiday shopping season, they stole the personal data of more than 70 million Target customers. Around the same time, a data breach at Neiman Marcus compromised the credit and debit card information of more than 1 million customers.

Every insurance policy has a section popularly known as “the fine print,” though its actual title is “Exclusions.” Exclusions are provisions in an insurance policy describing losses that the policy will not cover. For example, a homeowner’s policy does not cover losses caused by the use of cars, and a business auto policy does not cover injuries caused by a bulldozer on a construction site. While it may appear at first glance that the insurance company includes these provisions to get out of paying claims, the reasons are more complex and less insidious than that. There are very sensible reasons why no insurance policy covers everything.