RJ and Makay

Nearly half of people between the ages of 45 and 65 say they don’t feel confident in their retirement planning, according to a poll by the Associated Press and LifeGoesStrong.com, a lifestyle website for Baby Boomers. Pre-retirees will therefore be counting heavily on Social Security to fund their retirement, the poll also shows.

Of the pre-retirees polled, 44% didn't feel confident about having enough money to live comfortably in retirement. When asked which income sources will be very or extremely important for them in retirement, 65% named Social Security. Here's how other key income sources ranked:

When it comes to pricing, fee-based financial advisors simply aren't charging enough, suggest data from wealth management software firm PriceMetrix. The company drew this conclusion after analyzing 380 million transactions executed between 2007 and 2010 in 1 million fee-based accounts and 4 million transactional accounts.

“The most surprising thing to us was the wide range of prices charged for similar relationships on similar-sized fee-based accounts,” remarks PriceMetrix CEO Doug Trott. Fees progressively declined from an average of 1.17% on accounts ranging between $1 million and $2 million to 0.63% on accounts worth more than $5 million, Trott says. For accounts between $250,000 and $500,000, the lowest quartile of the advisors charged an average of 81 basis points while the highest quartile charged 208 basis points.

With the recession and bear market still fresh in their minds, Americans are increasingly opting for savings vehicles with safety features such as a guaranteed income stream in retirement. Their need for more security has pushed demand for annuity products, especially variable annuities, to record highs.

For example, fourth-quarter variable annuity sales totaled $37.6 billion, a 10% increase from the previous quarter and an 18% gain from the fourth quarter of 2009, reports the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI). Variable annuity assets reached an all-time high of $1.5 trillion last year, the IRI adds.