A recent study by the Society of Actuaries found an increased need for risk management and financial advisement in retirement planning.

The study surveyed respondents on a variety of retirement-related risks. According to the results, retirees’ and pre-retirees main concerns include keeping the value of investments up with inflation, income varying due to changes in interest rates, the affordability of health care and long term care, outliving assets, and maintaining a reasonable standard of living.

Although concerns are numerous for retirees and pre-retirees, when it comes time to make important financial decisions, many do not look far enough into the future. The typical retiree has a planning horizon of just five years, while the average pre-retiree has a 10-year planning horizon. Just 7 percent of retirees and 13 percent of pre-retirees look 20 years or more into the future when making financial decisions.

However, the study found that retirees are managing the savings and spending wisely. Sixty-eight percent of retirees create a plan to manage their money each year to prevent them from outliving their finances, and 73 percent of retirees consider allocating their investments and savings to different types of assets. But only 24 percent of retirees have purchased or plan to buy a product with guaranteed income for life.

Most often, retirees withdraw money as needed from savings with no set plan (36 percent) and pre-retirees plan to do the same (39 percent). One-quarter of retirees (24 percent) and one in 10 pre-retirees (8 percent) say that the money should be used to pay for emergencies only.

One common suggestion for those looking to extend their savings is to delay retirement. But the study showed that only a very small percentage (14 percent of retirees and 10 percent of pre-retirees) actually believe that delaying retirement by three years would make them financially a lot more secure. Indeed, 46 percent of retirees and 37 percent of pre-retirees believe retiring three years early wouldn’t make them any more secure.

The biggest incentive to delaying retirement is receiving health insurance coverage; 47 percent of retirees and 82 percent of pre-retirees think continuing to receive health insurance would increase their financial security in retirement.

In fact, health care is such a concern for survey respondents that 49 percent of retirees and 67 percent of pre-retirees worry that they will run out of money to pay for adequate health care. Forty-six percent of retirees and 55 percent of pre-retirees are concerned about paying for long term care, such as nursing care at home or an assisted living facility. For both groups, their main strategy to manage health costs is maintaining healthy life habits; less than 50 percent in both groups are saving for a large health expense or purchasing long term care insurance.

Instant Insights /

Health care, LTC, and risk management are major concerns for retirees

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