When it comes to investing money for retirement, 65 percent of LGBTQ respondents say they're in growth- rather than preservation-oriented assets . (Photo: Shutterstock)
They see the need for caution. But compared to other retirees and pre-retirees, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer Americans actually take bigger investing risks.
So says a study from Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., which finds that while LGBTQ respondents are more likely to say they should become more conservative with their money as they approach retirement (42 percent) than to maintain a more aggressive investment strategy (28 percent), what they actually do is not consistent with that.
While both LGBTQ respondents to the MassMutual LGBTQ Retirement Risk Study and the general population believe that their retirement savings will last a median of 25 years, LGBTQ respondents plan to spend a median of 22 years in retirement.
They also are slightly more likely to say their retirement income will last as long as they live—71 percent compared with 65 percent.
In addition, they plan to work longer than the general population, with 62 percent saying they will retire in 11 to 15 years. Overall, only 49 percent of the general population intends to do that.
But when it comes to investing that money for retirement, 65 percent of LGBTQ respondents say they're in growth- rather than preservation-oriented assets (only 8 percent said the latter), compared with 52 percent of the general population.
However, when asked which theory comes the closest to how they approach retirement investing, more LGBTQ respondents chose the conservative option (42 percent) over the growth-focused option (28 percent).
In addition, 31 percent of LGBTQ respondents do acknowledge that they might be more exposed to risk than they should be; just 22 percent of other retirees and pre-retirees acknowledge that.
But of course they also want their investments to outperform the market, with 17 percent of both LGBTQ respondents overall and LGBTQ retirees saying they want that, in comparison with just 13 percent of the general population overall and 9 percent of general population retirees.
Yet they're more worried, at 76 percent compared with 64 percent of the general population, about volatility.
They're also most worried about health and long-term care costs, at 32 percent compared with 26 percent in the general population, and not having enough money to enjoy retirement—but they're just a tad less worried about that, at 21 percent, than the general population, at 22 percent.
“MassMutual's study shows that many LGBTQ retirees and preretirees may benefit from consulting a financial advisor about their retirement investment goals, something less than half currently do, and may benefit from help leading into retirement and securing their finances through retirement,” Catherine Cannon, head of Personal Markets at MassMutual, says in a statement.
Cannon adds, “Of those respondents in our study who do work with a financial advisor, six in 10 say their advisor has encouraged them to change their investment mix and 87 percent of those folks were advised to become more conservative as they enter retirement.”
Interestingly, LGBTQ pre-retirees are focused on needing between 75–90 percent of their pre-retirement income to live comfortably in retirement (32 percent compared with 15 percent of LGBTQ retirees).
But once they retire, the picture changes—retired LGBTQ respondents say they actually need less than half of their pre-retirement income (33 percent vs. 6 percent of pre-retirees).
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Marlene Satter
Marlene Y. Satter has worked in and written about the financial industry for decades.