Thrivent Financial News— A roundup of news and features

Insurance

New Look at Life

Life insurance is a far more important tool in your financial strategy than you may think.

On one level, it’s about protecting your family and being able to replace your income if you were to die prematurely. But beyond that, life insurance can be used as a means to help you protect the assets you’ve accumulated, and it can help you leave a legacy to the people and organizations that are important to you.

“Your needs change as you progress through life,” says Julie Halgren, manager of protection product and solution marketing at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. “And the role that life insurance can play changes as well through your life stages.”

That will be one of the central messages in September as Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, along with other financial services organizations across the country, recognize Life Insurance Awareness Month. This campaign, coordinated by the Life and Health Foundation for Education, focuses on motivating people to review their life insurance needs and take necessary steps to ensure their own and their family’s financial future.

“It’s about reaching your goals, whether that’s to provide for your family in the case of your death, help pay for a college education, pursue a family dream or preserve your estate,” says Halgren.

To learn more about life insurance options and to determine your needs, contact your Thrivent Financial representative. More information is also available at www.thrivent.com/magazine/insurance.

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Volunteering

Best Intentions

The good news? Nearly two in three American adults performed some type of volunteer service in 2006. The bad news? Many more wanted to volunteer but didn’t.

A survey of 1,000 American adults by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans revealed 64 percent of American adults said they had performed some type of volunteer activity in 2006, but 86 percent said they would be willing to volunteer – a gap of 22 percent. The survey found even larger gaps between volunteer intent and action among common volunteer activities:

• Sixty-five percent of American adults said they would be willing to serve meals to homeless people, but just 12 percent had done so during the past 12 months.
• Fifty-one percent of adults said they would be willing to tutor or mentor at-risk kids, but just 15 percent had done so.
• Forty-eight percent of adults said they would be willing to build affordable, decent housing for those in need, but just 5 percent had done so.

“Americans genuinely want to help others but often have trouble fulfilling their volunteer intentions,” said Brad Hewitt, senior vice president for Thrivent Financial who oversees the organization’s volunteer programs. “Short-term volunteer opportunities that address real needs but are easy to access can help people move from good intent to action.”

Despite volunteerism’s nearly universal appeal, the Thrivent Financial survey revealed that most Americans find it easier to give money to support a charitable cause than to give their time. Fifty-three percent of respondents said money was easier to give, 30 percent said time was easier to give and 14 percent said both were equally easy to give.

Telephone interviews were conducted for Thrivent Financial by Synovate TeleNation Research, Chicago, Illinois, between Dec. 8-10, 2006, among a nationwide sample of 1,000 U.S. adults age 18 and older. The margin of error for questions posed to all 1,000 respondents is +/- 3 percent.

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Honors

Thrivent Magazine Wins Gold

Thrivent Financial for Lutherans’ official quarterly member publication, Thrivent, won a prestigious 2007 Gold Quill Award of Merit in the publications category, presented by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).

IABC is a premier organization with more than 13,000 business communications professionals in more than 60 countries. The Gold Quill Awards program has been the hallmark of excellence in business communication for more than 35 years. The winners represent the best in organizational communication and their work plans serve as best practices for professional communicators across communication disciplines. This year’s competition was sponsored by Towers Perrin and received more than 1,170 entries from 21 countries. Of these, 102 were selected to receive awards: 46 Awards of Excellence, 53 Awards of Merit and 3 student awards.

The Gold Quill entries went through two rigorous rounds of judging by a team of top senior communicators from around the world. The final selection was made in March by the Gold Quill Blue Ribbon Panel of judges at the IABC world headquarters in San Francisco. The winners were honored at the Gold Quill Awards gala on June 25 at IABC’s International Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. A select number of winning entries were on display at the conference.

Over the last year, Thrivent magazine has earned awards from the IABC Silver Quill regional awards competition, the Twin Cities chapter of Association for Women in Communications, the Communicator Awards Print Media Competition and the Awards for Publication Excellence (APEX) competition.

Thrivent magazine reaches nearly 3 million Thrivent Financial members in all 50 states and in many other countries around the world. Thrivent Financial teams up with MSP Communications, a custom publisher based in Minneapolis, to produce Thrivent magazine. MSP publishes magazines, newsletters, Web sites and e-content.

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Investing

Steady Income Stream - People are living longer, so money for retirement must last longer. But inflation’s corrosive effects diminish the buying power of retirement dollars just when retirees can least afford it.

To help retirement income keep pace with inflation and ensure retirees still have guaranteed income, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans has introduced a new Single Premium Immediate Annuity (SPIA) that includes a payment type adjusted for inflation.

With Consumer Price Index (CPI)-adjusted annuity payments—a unique offering in the industry—payments are linked to the CPI, a commonly used inflation measurement tool, and are guaranteed to never decrease. If deflation rather than inflation occurs, annuitants will never receive less than the amount they received the previous year.

“This new annuity is part of Thrivent Financial’s goal of helping our members prepare for and thrive in retirement,” said Ann Koplin, director of annuity product marketing. “Now our members can have a steady income stream in retirement and have that stream protected against the effects of inflation.”

Thrivent Financial’s SPIA offers two additional payment types:

• Fixed percentage increase annuity payments that adjust each contract year by a fixed annual percentage from 1 to 5 percent, based on the annuitant’s choice.
• Level annuity payments that remain equal throughout the entire payment period.

In addition, the Thrivent Financial SPIA offers several income payment options. Annuitants can receive payments over their lifetime, over the lifetime of two people, for a fixed period of time or for a specified amount (only available with the level annuity payment type). SPIA may not be available in all states. Check with your financial representative for availability. [Form numbers 4474, A-IA-SPIA (07),
A-IP-SPIAP (07) and A-IX-SPIAX  (07).]

Call your financial representative for more information.