Something Missing

I send you emails like this to needle you about how you can increase the number of advisors who read your magazine by offering better articles. It's still true that you need better articles, but I'd like to comment on an article that was boring and that left out vital information.

How can you have an article on HSAs ("HSA Highlights") and not give the maximum contribution amounts to the HSA? For 2007, the maximum annual HSA contribution for an eligible individual with self-only coverage is $2,850. For family coverage the maximum HSA contribution is $5,650.

There was also no mention of the new, much higher deductibles that have risen from $5,000 for a family to $11,000. The higher deductible further drives down the insurance premiums.

I'll keep offering to write articles on my cool and useful topics, since I know many advisors receive your mag even if they may not always see value in the humdrum topics covered. My stuff is the best in the industry in giving advice to HNW clients and that's why when I had a regular monthly article in FP mag, it was usually the most-read article.

Since the leadership of FP changed, I was dropped from the magazine for reasons that were never clear to me. Over 100k financial planners receive my newsletters every week. Having my articles in FP would elevate its status from a trade rag looking to fill space every week into something more useful. When you're ready to give your readers something to look forward to, let me know.

—Roccy DeFrancesco, JD, CWPP
Founder, The Wealth Preservation Institute
Co-founder, The Asset Protection Society
St. Joseph, Mich.

The editors respond: Thank you, Roccy, for providing us with the most recent maximum contributions for HSAs. We cover them so frequently, sometimes we forget that people don't know them. We would, however, like to set the record straight on a couple of other points. For one thing, Financial Planning has never been a weekly magazine. For another, yours were never the best-read articles. That honor is shared by John Bowen and Bob Veres.