In Colorado Springs this week, members of the Insured Retirement Institute met to discuss the impact of the DOL fiduciary rule. 'It's not all doom and gloom,' said one industry observer, who expects demand for retirement income planning, and planning products, to emerge.

'If you’re trying to get things right, our aim is to help you, and that will be true for some time after December 2017,' said attorney Tim Hauser of the Labor Department regarding enforcement of the DOL's fiduciary rule. Illustration by Stephen Younts.

Medicare counseling can be an excellent marketing tool for advisors, especially those who are positioning themselves as retirement specialists. Just ask Ash Toumayants of State College, Pa.

Goal-based investing is more than just mental accounting that assigns labels like “house,” “college” or “retirement” to different pots of money. It's ultimately about risk management, as we learned from Lionel Martellini, director of France's EDHEC RIsk Institute.