Longevity Planning vs. Retirement Planning
Retirement is at the forefront of your clients minds. Thinking about how and where they will retire likely dominates their future plans. Similarly they’re planning for what that retirement will be filled with. Travel, family and relaxation are generally at the forefront of your typical retirees mind. It’s a period of time like none other and they’re likely wanting to take full advantage of it.
Longevity and the Post-Retirement Period
One question you and your clients should be asking is “what happens after retirement?” No, we’re not talking about death, we’re talking about longevity. Simply put, there will come a time when immobility and age overtakes all of us and “traditional” retirement activities are no longer feasible. This post-retirement/pre-death period is a tricky area to navigate and even harder to plan for.
Longevity planning is having a strategy around how your clients’ wealth will be used to sustain them after they have largely accomplished their retirement goals. This money is dedicated to things like medicine or assisted living. As we already know, people are living longer than ever before thanks to modern medicine, in fact one out of every three 65 years-olds today will live past 90. Failing to plan this “post-retirement” living can be severely detrimental to your clients finances.
The Hidden Costs of Long Life
Life sustaining medicine will likely play a role in your clients old age and as we already know today, medicine generally doesn’t come cheap, even with Medicare. However, more than medicine is living assistance. This can take several forms from a whole house remodel to allow your clients to age in place, to a visiting care taker, or being put in some form of assisted living facility. The price tag on any of these can be astronomical if not planned for and if insurance is not purchased ahead of time.
There are a lot of moving parts to plan for when thinking about longevity. It takes time to research them properly and numerous discussions with your clients about how their finances will take them into old age. It’s your job to do the due diligence, research and make suggestions to your clients so that they can enjoy their post-retirement life and have money left to pass on to the next generation.