Scorpios Worry, Virgos Budget

December 14, 2006 at 08:46 PM
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Financial professionals may have to work harder to persuade Aries clients to buy lifetime income annuities and Libra clients to buy long term care insurance.

Researchers at Allstate Corp., Northbrook, Ill., have published figures justifying those startling ideas in a summary of what they hasten to emphasize was a lighthearted survey of 1,603 people.

"We know people enjoy reading their horoscopes for fun, and we thought this would be a simple way to illustrate that everybody has personality strengths and weaknesses that can shape how they save for retirement," Casey Sylla, president of Allstate's Allstate Financial subsidiary, says in a statement about the survey.

The participants were born between 1946 and 1978. Working participants had annual household incomes of at least $35,000, and retirees had annual household incomes of at least $20,000.

Answers to some questions were similar for participants born under all astrological "signs."

About 87% to 94% of participants born under all signs strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement "You frequently shop around for the best deal," and 89% to 97% said the statement "You are disciplined" describes them well.

Sign-to-sign variations for some other questions were much greater.

About 50% of the Scorpios interviewed agreed that retirement is or would likely to be "financially difficult," while only 29% of the Virgos agreed with that assessment.

Aries participants were substantially less likely than the other participants to say they had bought lifetime income annuities: Only 14% said they had or would have lifetime income annuities, compared with 34% of the participants from the sign of Aquarius.

Meanwhile, 26% of the Capricorns interviewed said they had bought private long term care insurance, compared with just 8% of the Libras.

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