Many Americans do not plan before they decide to retire, and they do not have clear strategies for handling risks, leaving them vulnerable to financial shocks later in life, according to a study by the Society of Actuaries and Matthew Greenwald and Associates.

The study was designed to explore how individuals make retirement decisions in order to gain better knowledge of the process they used to make decisions, what steps were included, how finances and other factors were considered and how successful they have been in later years.

Eight focus groups of "resource-constrained" retirees who had voluntarily retired were interviewed. Groups were separated by asset level, sex and geography.  A comparison of recent versus more long-term retirees was also examined.